Avenging Angel
by illman
Summary: When Will comes under suspicion for murder and corruption, Emma decides to take things into her own hands.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Avenging Angel  
Author: hexicode aka illman  
Fandom/pairing (if appropriate): The Bill, no pairing  
Summary: When Will comes under suspicion for murder and corruption, Emma decides to take things into her own hands.  
Rating: technically all ages, but maybe a bit too violent for the kiddies ;-)  
Warnings some violence, but nothing too graphic  
Disclaimers: The characters and settings aren't mine. No profit is being made, this is for entertainment only.  
A/N: My first foray into this fandom. To avid fans of Tatort, the plot of this story may seem suspiciously familiar, that's because it was rather heavily inspired by an episode of that show. This being said, it's hardly a novel idea, but I liked the concept too much not to give it a whirl. Many thanks to the lovely DianeM for beta-reading.

oOo

Will was having the worst hangover of his life.

From the moment he had pried open his eyes and come face to face with too much light and a pillow that didn't seem familiar, he had known that he had had way too much to drink. Painfully blinded by the morning sunlight, he immediately slammed his eyes shut again, but curiosity, worry and thirst got the better of him when, despite considerable effort on his part, he failed to remember getting drunk in the first place. Never having quite managed that before, he opened his eyes again.

The light still seemed far too bright and was only aggravating his headache, but he was now certain that he had never seen the room before, at least not sober. He pushed himself up and, leaning against the headboard, he took a more thorough inventory. The double bed he had woken up in had clearly been shared by two people, but it didn't look as if he had done much sharing with anyone as he was still mostly dressed, wearing most of his uniform. Despite the headache, he realized that he was going to be in a world of trouble and that he ought to do something about it, no matter how tempting the idea of simply going back to sleep seemed.

He dragged his legs over the edge of the bed and used the headboard to pull himself up to stand. He took a step forwards, but his legs gave way under him immediately. Face-first, he slammed into unfamiliar, brown-gold patterned carpeting. The dust and smell of cold cigarette smoke up-close made his stomach churn and brought him back to his feet, stumbling towards a door behind which he hoped the bathroom was because he really didn't want to be sick all over someone else's carpet, no matter how ugly it was. To part of him, out of the corner of his eyes, it looked like the bathroom door had been bashed in, but as he was violently sick a second later, that detail seemed negligible, at least for the moment.

Only when he'd brought up the contents of a meal he couldn't remember and the dry heaves that followed stopped, he became aware of the state of his surroundings. The small, generic bathroom had clearly been the scene of a fight. The mirror on the opposite wall was smashed, shards and blood smears all over the white tiles. The blood was deep red, still wet, but it took him a moment to realize that it was his own blood. He had cut himself when he'd stumbled inside. The cut on the bottom of his right foot was bleeding profusely and now it was starting to hurt, although the pain was minor in contrast to the headache, which only seemed to be getting worse by the second. Will pushed himself up from the floor and flushed the toilet, trying to gather his thoughts. It seemed impossible to follow even a single track of thought; he felt like his brain was going to leak out of his ears any moment. Supporting himself on the sink, he turned on the faucet and splashed water in his face, hoping to clear up the fog that clouded his mind. The water was icy against his face, but the cold served to wake him up more fully. He splashed another handful of water against the back of his neck and had another look around the trashed bathroom. Just what had happened last night?

Will's gaze fell down to his knuckles. His vision kept blurring and doubling, but they were neither cut nor bruised. He hadn't been in a fight. He ran a hand over the back of his head, belatedly realizing that he was displaying all the symptoms of a severe head injury, but he couldn't even feel a goose egg. He hadn't been attacked, and he hadn't been in a fight – what was left? Will tried to recall what had happened. Nothing coherent would come to him. The last thing he recalled clearly was starting his shift almost a day earlier. He had been partnered up with Sally - that much he could recall. Things were pretty clear up until the late afternoon, when his memory became increasingly fuzzy. He couldn't recall finishing his shift. It was like his memory had been erased.

Sitting down on the rim of the bathtub, he tried to figure out what to do next. It was then that he noticed the blood splattered from the inside against the pale green shower curtain. Will pulled back the curtain. The moment he saw the body, he remembered. Rebecca. He'd met her last weekend, at the pub. They had hit it off immediately. They had exchanged numbers, but Will didn't recall having heard from her again. Something had to have happened the previous afternoon that had for some inexplicable and horrible reason ended with Rebecca dead.

The sight of her lying dead, her clothes soaked with drying blood made him feel sick, but he couldn't look away, the part of his mind that was still clear was analyzing every detail. Her throat had been slashed across the front, a shard of the mirrored glass still sticking from the jagged wound. Her lower arms and hands were littered with cuts, some shallow, some deeper – defensive wounds. She had fought back hard. But she probably hadn't stood a chance once she'd struck the wall with the back of her head, leaving a stain of blood on the tiles.

Will couldn't help but see the scene play out in front of his inner eye and felt sick again. He was trying to tell himself that it was just a nightmare, but it was real. The piercing ring of his cell phone sent a new wave of pain through his head as he was torn from the grizzly image. He stumbled back outside, not caring that he cut his feet on the broken glass. The room was immaculate, only the bed was disturbed. His cell phone was on the bedside table, next to glasses and a bottle of champagne in a cooler. Hesitating for a moment, Will sat down on the bed before reaching for the phone. He noted the caller ID was Emma. Will swallowed. What time was it anyways? It was well light outside. He probably should be at work.

"Will, is that you?" A woman's voice came over the line, sounding annoyed. For a moment he wondered who she was, until he recalled checking the caller ID just moments earlier. Something was seriously wrong with his head and the problem seemed to be getting worse.

"Will?"

"Uhm, yeah. Emma?" Will managed, his own voice sounding slurred to him.

"Everything all right? The sergeant is looking for you! You missed the briefing this morning!"

Will tried to say something, anything that would adequately describe the situation, but his mind drew a blank.

"Will, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

"No, I think not," he finally said, not knowing where to even start. It was starting to get harder to stay upright, so Will allowed his head to sink back into the pillow. He could talk with his eyes closed just as well. "There is a….Rebecca is dead. I think she's been murdered." There, Emma needed to know that. For some reason, it seemed really important, even though he couldn't remember why.

"Rebecca?! Oh, never mind, where are you?" The voice sounded panicked now.

"I dunno," Will whispered. With what little strength he had left, he pulled himself up again and looked around. He'd seen it before when reaching for his phone, the receipt from room service. Will ignored Emma for the moment, all his attention focussed on making out the fine print on the white slip of paper. Gardena Hotel – at least that was what it looked like to him. Emma was still shouting at him through the phone, but he couldn't make out the words properly.

"Gardena Hotel, I'm there" he replied simply to her earlier question. There was welcome silence at the other end. Will sank back into the pillows. Despite the predicament he vaguely recalled being in, he was starting to feel almost calm. Everything was drifting away. Emma was saying something, but he couldn't make out the words, and suddenly didn't care anymore. The phone felt like a brick in his hand, so he simply shut it and let it drop into the pillows around him.

oOo

"Will, what's happened? Will, answer me!" Emma almost yelled into the phone but got no response. She called out his name a few more times, but to no avail. Then the line went dead. Emma stared at the phone in her hand for a few moments. She had no idea what had just happened, but whatever it was, it was bad and Will was almost certainly in trouble.

"So, did you finally manage to reach PC Fletcher?" The sergeant, wearing a grim expression, came walking up to where she was standing in the yard of the station.

"Yes, I did, Sarge."

"Well, I hope he has a good excuse for missing the briefing. It's the second time this week."

"I really think there is something wrong. He didn't even make sense when I talked to him. He said something about someone being dead and he couldn't remember where he was."

"I hope for his sake that he isn't simply drunk out of his mind," Stone grumbled. "Did he manage to tell you where he was?"

Emma nodded. "The Gardena Hotel."

"Come on." Stone walked towards the area car, where Sally was already waiting, leaning against the vehicle. "Sally and I have the area car today. It's not that we don't have enough to do with this upsurge of street muggings all around Sun Hill, but if there really is something wrong, we need to check on Will first."

Sally shot Emma a questioning look. "I'll explain in the car," Emma whispered to her colleague.

"Thanks, Sarge," Emma said aloud as she, Sally and Stone got into the car and peeled out of the station's car park.

oOo

"I didn't think that was Will's style," Sally commented as the Gardena Hotel came into view down the street. "I really thought he'd better taste then this."

"And better sense," Stone added as they were cruising for a free parking spot. "A few weeks back the drug squad raided this place. I think they used to have this place under surveillance, but I haven't heard anything in a while now. Seems to have quieted down."

"I didn't know anything about that," Sally confessed. Neither did Emma. Callum shrugged. "I got a mate who's with the drug squad." He turned the car into an adjacent street, where they finally found a free spot at the curb.

"Thanks." Emma pushed open the door and got out.

"Hurry up. The sooner we get this cleared up the better," Stone told her "If a call comes in, we can't just ignore it." He was obviously trying to sound calm, but Emma could tell that he was worried too. "But if something dodgy is going on in there, you let us know immediately." Emma nodded and started walking towards the hotel, anxious and worried about what she might find. She'd almost preferred it if the sergeant or at least Sally were coming with her, but they hadn't offered and the sergeant was already doing her a favour by driving her across Sun Hill to check on Will instead of just reporting him to the inspector and getting on with his shift. As soon as she was out of sight of the area car, she broke into a run. She just knew that there was something very, very wrong here.

oOo

The hotel was as low rent as you could get and looked more like a hostel than a proper hotel. What passed for an entrance hall was a dimly lit room with a reception desk next to the stairs and some worn furniture in the far corner. People didn't come here to enjoy a vacation. There was no one about, save for the receptionist, who was busy filling in a cross-word puzzle. She looked up, but the presence of a uniformed police officer seemed to have little effect as she regarded Emma with a blank expression on her face.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for…Did someone book into a room under the name Fletcher?"

The receptionist only glanced at the sign in sheet. "No. But if you are looking for a colleague of yours, he's in room 204. Up the stairs, second room on the right."

"Uhm, how did you know he was a colleague?

"He was in uniform. If he hadn't been so drunk, he'd have scared the rest of the guests to death. Police isn't good for business, if you know what I mean. Not that it isn't dead already after you lot stormed the place in the middle of the night. And you know what they found?" She let out a bitter laugh.

"Nothing, no drugs, nothing. All night…"

Emma ignored her. Letting herself be wound up by the woman's general frustration with the police wasn't going to help Will.

"Was he with someone?"

The receptionist paused in her tirade. "As far as I recall, he was with a woman."

"Thank you." Emma turned and hurried up the stairs, not caring what the receptionist was talking about as she called after her.

oOo

The door to room 204 was ajar and one glance at the lock told Emma that it had been forced open. "Will! Are you in there?" she called out and knocked forcefully against the wooden door.

The response was little more than a groan, but enough to spur her into action. Emma pushed the door open, not knowing what she might find. But her nightmarish visions of a room covered in blood with Will lying in the middle, were not confirmed. It was one of the ugliest hotel rooms she had ever seen, right down to the off-white wallpaper with yellow flowers and the golden-brown carpet, but it looked undisturbed at first glance. Emma suddenly felt silly for having wanted to call in back-up. Stone was probably right and Will had just had too much to drink. She crossed the room to where Will was slumped on the bed.

"Will!" She gently shook him by the arm. He groaned once again and his eyes drifted open. He stared at her with an empty gaze, the true colour of his eyes almost hidden by gigantic black pupils. He slowly sat up. "What are you doing here?" He looked around as if he was seeing the room for the first time. Emma's gaze fell on the mobile phone on the bed and the two glasses on the table. There was only a single bottle of champagne, by far not enough for Will to be in such a state, especially not if he had been sharing the drink.

"You called me, don't you remember?! Can you tell me what happened? Are you hurt?" Emma asked, still reeling with the shock of seeing her colleague obviously high on more than alcohol. Will shook his head. "Rebecca...the bathroom." he told her in a slurred voice, before slumping back down onto the bed, his eyes already drifting closed again. Having no choice but to leave him there for the moment, Emma crossed the room, worried about what she might find.

This door too had been forced open, but unlike the front door, the lock hadn't been simply picked, the door had been kicked out of the frame with brute force. The trail of destruction continued inside. The air smelled of blood and vomit. She crossed the room in two steps and instantly saw what Will had meant. A woman, presumably Rebecca, was lying in the bathtub. She was still dressed in a fine nightgown, but it was drenched with blood down the front. There was still a shard of mirrored glass sticking out from one of the bloody tears in her throat, but it had long stopped bleeding. Emma didn't need to check to know the woman was dead.

"She's really dead, isn't she?" Emma turned around and found Will half-standing, half-leaning against the doorframe. He looked ready to collapse again at any moment.

Emma nodded. "Yes, she's dead." She walked over to Will and carefully took him by the arm and tried steering him back to the bed. "I need to call this in. And then I think I should call for an ambulance, too." She got him to sit down on the bed again and now noticed the bloody footprints she'd missed earlier. Obviously Will had cut his feet on the broken mirror when he walked in barefoot. This was going to be a nightmare, Emma swallowed. But first things first. She was about to radio Stone when Will suddenly went limp in her grasp. Unable to support him in this position, Emma pulled him down to the floor as gently as possible. Only when she'd settled him as comfortably as she could, she realized that he wasn't breathing anymore.

Swearing to herself, Emma prepared for rescue breathing when Will took a shuddering breath. She watched him for tense seconds, but he continued breathing in ragged gasps. She rocked back on her heels and reached for her radio, her hand shaking. She could do this, she told herself, she had done this so many times on the job and this was no different. But before she had a chance to contact Sally and the sergeant, Will launched into a fit, his body jerking violently.

Desperately, she tried to recall her first-aid training, but she couldn't remember anything. She pulled a pillow from the bed and shoved it under Will's head, hoping that would keep him from hurting himself even worse, but there was nothing else she could do. It seemed like an eternity passed, but it was probably only seconds until the seizure was over and Will's body went still again. Too still, not even his chest was moving now.

oOo

"Can you tell me what happened?" the female paramedic, who had pulled her away from Will so that her colleagues could get to work, asked her softly.

Emma struggled to gather her thoughts. She should be better at this. A chiding voice in her head told her that she was a copper and should be able to handle herself in a crisis situation.

"Are you all right?" the paramedic asked her, interrupting her thoughts. "Maybe you should sit down?"

"No, I'm fine." she lied, but when the woman simply guided her over to a chair next to the table, she didn't resist.

"He…his name is Will Fletcher, PC Will Fletcher, he's a colleague of mine at Sun Hill Station," Emma began. "I came here to pick him up; he was late for work. At first I thought he was drunk…but he didn't recall that we'd talked on the phone just twenty minutes earlier. He seemed very disorientated. I tried to talk to him, but he suddenly collapsed. He had a seizure, at least that was what it looked like. I…I didn't know what to do. And then he stopped breathing and I couldn't find a pulse. I tried CPR, but I don't think…"

"You did very well. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't be alive now." The woman patted her shoulder gently.

"So, he is going to be all right?" Emma asked anxiously. She didn't even want to contemplate the alternative.

"It's too early to tell. We are taking him to St. Hugh's now." She turned back to the other two paramedics, who had by now loaded Will onto a stretcher and were just carrying him through the door. They were barely out the door when Stone and Sally came storming in.

"Emma, are you all right?" Sally rushed towards her and pulled her into a hug. "I'm fine. It's Will."

"We saw," Stone simply said. "I think you should ride along in the ambulance. Keep me updated."

Emma got up, ready to follow the paramedics, when she remembered the dead woman lying in the bathtub soaked in her own blood. "You need to inform CID, there is a body in the bathroom." Sally stared at her in shock, while Stone simply raised an eyebrow. If he was shocked or surprised he didn't let on. "I'll do that. Now hurry up." He almost pushed her out the door, but there was concern in his voice. "Have them check you out as well."

oOo

There was nothing they had been able to do for the woman. Stone had checked on her before calling it in as a suspicious death, but she had already been dead for several hours. With her violent death they had a murder on their patch and for the moment, Will was either a victim or a suspect, or both. Sally was waiting for him in the corridor. She tried hard to look composed, but Stone could tell that she was shaken by the events.

"Sarge, I've spoken to the receptionist. Will and the woman checked in under the name of William and Rebecca Smith. Fake name, obviously. They booked in around eleven thirty, both apparently pretty drunk already. They ordered room service around midnight, one bottle of champagne, two glasses."

"I'm surprised this place even has room service," Stone remarked, his mind really elsewhere at the moment. "Do they have CCTV?"

"No, not inside the hotel."

"Knew this was a dive."

"There is something." Sally held out a key ring with several keys attached. "Rebecca, or whatever her real name is, left her keys with the receptionist- something about making sure that she wouldn't drive - as I said, they both seemed pretty drunk, maybe more."

"More as in they were on drugs?" It was a rhetorical question. With the state Will had been in, there had to be drugs involved.

"Probably," Sally replied sadly. "Still, I can't believe Will would take drugs."

"Let's not jump to conclusions. But no, I don't think he would take drugs either," he said when Sally looked at him doubtfully. "There is nothing more we can do here. CID will take it from here. But I want to have a look at her car," Stone explained as they walked back downstairs.

"Can you ask around to see if any of the shops in the street have outside CCTV?" he asked Sally, but it really was more of an order.

"Shouldn't we stay here, make sure the scene isn't disturbed?"

"It's already been disturbed as far as it gets, with Emma, the paramedics and us all traipsing through that hotel room. The DPS won't wait to stick their oar in. The sooner we find something that puts Will in the clear, the better."

oOo

"Are you sure that caffeine is a good idea right now?" Emma looked up from her cup and saw Sally and Stone standing next to where she was sitting in one of the waiting rooms at St. Hugh's Hospital. She felt like she had been waiting for hours, but every time she looked up at the large clock on the wall, the hands had barely moved. By the time Sally and Stone had arrived, only an hour had passed since Will had been brought in.

"Probably not." Emma looked up at her colleagues, plastering a smile on her face. Sally wasn't fooled for a minute. "You look like you could use some chocolate and maybe a cup of tea. I'll go and see what they have available," Sally offered and before Emma could reply, she had already disappeared down the corridor, leaving Emma alone with the sergeant.

"Any news about Will?"

"Not much. He's still critical. They think he must have taken an overdose, but they are not sure of what, so all they can do is treat the symptoms."

"I might be able to shed some light on that." Stone pulled out a small plastic bag containing a single tablet. "I found this in the hotel parking lot, next to the victim's car. I've no idea what it is, but I don't think it's aspirin. Look at the imprint." He handed it to Emma. She turned the bag around, regarding the tablet closely. There was the impression of a wave stamped into the grey tablet. "I've never seen one of those before."

"Here you go." Sally was back from the vending machine and handed Emma a cup and a chocolate bar.

"Thanks." Emma took the cup and chocolate bar from Sally, accidentally dropping the plastic bag in the process. Emma bent to pick it up, but Sally had already snatched it. "Where'd that come from?" she asked, frowning.

"Found it in the parking lot while you were getting the CCTV tapes," Stone explained. "Why? Do you know what it is?"

"I think I do. Last week, Will and I arrested this guy at the Oak Leaf Club, and he had a bunch of these on him. Apparently it's some new designer drug from Russia."

"I haven't heard anything about that. If there is a new drug on the streets, CID should have kept us in the loop. Didn't you inform CID?" Stone asked sternly.

"We did that, Sarge, and they said that they'd take care of it. I figure they treated this as an isolated incident. The guy, a Dutch citizen only carried five tablets and was in the UK on business. They probably figured he got them from a dealer back home."

"Looks like they are wrong after all. Someone here in Sun Hill got their hands on more of this stuff."

"They could have bought them off the Dutch guy. He denied selling any, said it was just for personal use, but that's what they all say." Sally shrugged. "Still, I think we should talk to him again, if he is still in the country."

"Which he probably isn't," Emma spoke out loud what they'd all been thinking.

"I'll try and find a doctor to let them know what they might be dealing with. I'm teaming you two up for the rest of the day, so get back out there. There is nothing that you can do here at the moment anyways," Stone ordered and vanished down the corridor without waiting for an answer. Emma looked after him. She still couldn't believe Will would take drugs voluntarily, but either way, she felt a little more hopeful now that they had found out what drug he had taken. The information had to be of some help to the doctors treating Will, even if the drug was relatively new on the streets, Emma told herself.

"Are you sure you are all right to go back to work?" Sally asked, interrupting her thoughts. Emma realized that she was waiting for her to get up and get moving.

"No, no, I'm fine. I just can't get it out of my head. I know it's silly, I have been in this sort of situation before and it's never affected me like this," Emma said with a sigh and got to her feet.

"Don't beat yourself up. Will's a friend; it's not wrong for you to be worried about him. I am too, you know," Sally told her.

"I know. I just hope he is going to be all right." Emma chucked the wrapper and empty plastic cup into the nearest waste bin. "Okay, let's get back to work." She tried to sound upbeat and cheerful, but she doubted that Sally was fooled.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

oOo

After dispatching Emma and Sally, Stone decided to take the logical next step which was to find out more about their victim. His search of the car had revealed a work ID badge in the name of Rebecca Williams for a place called Orgon Publishing. Stone had never heard of the business and, under other circumstances, he might have wondered of publishing really paid well enough for them to occupy an entire multi-storey office building in one of the nicer business districts of Sun Hill. At the moment, though, his mind was mulling over the events of the morning.**  
**  
"Are you looking forward to her third book?" Stone turned around. He had been so lost in thought while waiting for the receptionist to deal with a customer that he hadn't noticed a woman walking up to him in the foyer of the publishing house

"Whose book?" he asked, slightly puzzled.

The woman indicated a series of posters behind him, displaying a black and white image of an angel, announcing in big golden letters a book titled _Racheengel _apparently penned by a person with the unlikely nom-de-plume of Moira Bliss. It was only because of the unusual title that he recalled at all having read something about the book. Apparently it was a pretty big deal, given the column an inch devoted to the subject in the local paper.

"Not exactly," he replied. "I don't really read many thrillers." In fact, he barely recalled what genre the book was. He usually skipped the book reviews in the morning newspaper, but this one had been hard to miss.

"Well, I suppose you get enough of the real thing in your line of work. Is there something I can help you with?" She was one of those women whose real age was very hard to estimate. She could be anywhere between thirty-five and sixty, dressed in a pinstripe business suit with her auburn hair wound into a tight bun.

"As a matter of fact there is. I'm looking to talk to anyone who might have worked with Rebecca Williams recently." It was a shot in the dark, but the victim's work place was as good a place to start as any for making some discreet inquiries. CID and the DPS would certainly pay Orgon Publishing a visit as well, but the sooner they found something that put Will in the clear, the sooner the DPS would be off their backs.

"Rebecca works for me. Why do you ask?" she asked, her tone making it clear that she expected an answer.

"And you are?" He met her question with another question.

"I'm Valery Orgon. I own this company," she introduced herself, shaking his hand firmly. "Now would you kindly tell me why you are here?"

"Sergeant Stone, Sun Hill. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Rebecca Williams was found dead this morning."

"Oh, that can't be…" Valery visibly paled, losing her composure for a moment, but quickly pulling herself together again. "Are you sure it is her?"

Stone nodded. "I'm afraid so. Is there somewhere we could talk?"

"Yes, yes, of course. We can talk in my office."

Stone followed her into the elevator and up to the second floor where a few doors down the corridor they stepped into a spacious office with a view of the river. Valery sank down in the chair behind her desk and started rummaging in one of the drawers. She pulled out a glass bottle of brown-golden liquor and poured a generous amount into a glass. Only when she had downed its contents in one gulp, her attention returned to Stone.

"I must apologize, I normally don't drink this early in the morning. It is just that this news comes at the worst possible time."

"How so?"

"Rebecca was Moira Bliss' literary agent. Moira did all her dealings exclusively through Rebecca. At least that was what I believed until a few days ago. Until she told me the truth. It came as a complete shock to me and now her death... I still can't believe it." Valery poured herself another drink.

"I'm not sure I understand."

"I'm sorry, I'm not making much sense at the moment," she said before downing her second drink. "Rebecca Williams was Moira Bliss. She was scheduled to reveal her identity at a press conference two days from now, coinciding with the launch of her latest book – _Racheengel_." Valery rested her face in her hands. "I honestly have no idea what we are going to do now without her."

"I see." Now Stone was starting to understand why Valery seemed so completely shattered by the news; she had just lost her most successful author.

"Her death, if you are here…Was she murdered?"

"We don't know for certain, but it looks like it. Do you know anything about her personal life?"

"No, not really. She never talked about herself. That's why I never even suspected that she could be Moira Bliss," Valery said, shaking her head. "I guess she spent most of her time writing," she eventually ventured.

"All right. I think that would be all for now. You'll probably hear from us again in the next few days." He turned to leave, a bit disappointed about having found out nothing substantial about the victim's personal life.

"Did you find Moira's manuscript?" Valery called after him. He turned around.

"Her manuscript?"

"Yes, she wanted to bring it in today. I was just thinking that maybe you'd found it….wherever Rebecca was found," she fumbled, as if she'd nearly let something slip. Stone was certain she knew more than she was letting on, but her reaction at hearing about Rebecca's death had been very convincing.

"No, so far we haven't found anything. But it's still early days."

"It's just that, Rebecca was very particular about her writing. You might call it old-fashioned, but she only kept the one original copy of her manuscript. Without it, the Zariel series will never be concluded."

"Do you know where she kept it?"

"At home, I suppose, but she never explicitly told me so. Please, you have to find it."

"We'll do our best. Just out of curiosity, how much would such a manuscript be worth?" he asked, the copper in him seeing a potential motive for the murder, as well as the break in into the victim's car. If he was on the right track, Will was almost certainly in the clear.

"I really can't say. It would be pretty much invaluable. It certainly is to us."

"So, she couldn't offer ít to another publishing house, for example?"

Valery hesitated for a moment. "No, no. Not without breaching the terms of her contract with us."

He was about to reply when his mobile rang.

oOo

The call had been from the inspector, telling him to drop whatever he was doing and get back to the station as the DPS wanted to talk to him urgently. As much as he loathed the prospect of being grilled by the DPS, he didn't waste any time returning to the station.

Like most police officers he knew, Sergeant Stone wasn't fond of the DPS. Real world police work wasn't always black and white, like the rule book made it out to be. He had come to realize early on in his career that sometimes justice needed a helping hand.

Just as his luck would have it, DCI Keane was leading the interview. He only knew the man by reputation. Apparently, he had led more than one inquiry involving Sun Hill, but he instantly disliked him.

"Would it surprise you if we told you that in searching PC Fletcher's locker, we found almost five hundred pounds in cash?" After some rather routine questions about the events of the morning, this question came as a surprise, but he wasn't about to let on. Stone hadn't worked at Sun Hill very long, but he knew that Will was a good copper and it would take more than just the usual dirt the DPS was capable of digging up to convince him otherwise.

"I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm not privy to the contents of the lockers of my fellow officers," he answered non-committally. Best to play it cool, he decided.

"PC Fletcher never told you about any financial problems?" The question didn't come entirely unexpected. He knew that it was standard procedure to have a look at the financial situation of an officer under investigation and, given what DCI Keane had just told him, it would have been one of the first things they checked.

"He did mention that he was behind on his rent." It had just been a side remark, not even directed at him. Just something he had overheard Will mentioning to Sally at the pub, but still, he should have pursued it immediately. Instead, he had forgotten about it almost at once.

"When was that?"

"About a week ago. He didn't seem overly concerned, so I didn't pursue it at the time. When I asked him a few days later if things were all right, he said everything was fine. I assumed that he sorted out the problem."

"Sorted out?" Stone didn't like the implication in DCI Keane's tone of voice, but he forced himself to remain calm.

"He didn't mention details and I didn't press," Stone replied, now regretting his lack of action. Things between him and Will had been strained since the incident on the rooftop. What they had done, or rather hadn't done, had been weighing on Will's conscience, he had known that. Will seemed to have pulled together after they'd spoken about it, but now he couldn't help but wonder if Will had been more deeply affected than he'd thought.

"There seems to be a lot you don't want to know about."

"I find it better not to get involved," Stone replied coldly.

"That wouldn't have anything to do with the problems you had at your previous station?" That was exactly the reason he disliked the DPS; they had a way of twisting everything around and putting things together that had nothing to do with each other.

"I left because of a personality clash with my inspector, but I'm sure you know the details already."

"Indeed we do. We've heard that you have a habit for flying solo."

"Can I ask what this has to do with PC Fletcher?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level and his emotions in check. Instead of trying to clear up a vicious murder, all they were doing was digging up dirt and not just on Will. The incident on the rooftop could break both their necks, if the DPS got wind of it. He had to tread carefully.

"On this past Monday, PCs Armstrong and Fletcher arrested a man in possession of five tablets of a novel designer drug, known in the clubbing scene as Mercury."

"I'm aware of that. They handed the case over to CID."

"Yes, they did. I've got their report right here. Do you want to read it?"

"No thanks, I'm familiar with the incident. It was a routine arrest and CID was informed. As far as I can tell, everything was done by the book."

"It just happens that there is no report. The incident was never reported to CID. How did you learn about the incident in the first place, if there was no report?" The detective sitting next to the DCI flipped open the folder to show it was empty. Stone had been caught out and he knew it. He didn't want to get Sally into trouble. He was sure she'd had good reasons for not filing a report, but if he lied now he'd put his head on the block along with hers.

"PC Armstrong told me about it this morning. She assured me that CID had been informed. I should have followed up on it."

"You couldn't very well do that. The arrest never happened, at least not on paper. There is no record of it and the drugs PCs Armstrong and Fletcher allegedly confiscated aren't in the evidence vault."

Stone didn't know what to say. He had planned to stick up for his officers, convinced that they might have bent the rules maybe, but not broken them outright, at least not without good reason. Sally had lied to his face at the hospital, about the arrest and the drugs, and although part of him wasn't sure what to believe anymore, he was intent of finding out the truth.

oOo

"...burger?"

"Uhm?" Emma hadn't been paying attention.

"I asked whether you wanted to go for a burger at the van down the street." Sally repeated her question.

Emma shrugged. "I'm not really hungry. But if you want a break..." she trailed off.

"I'm fine. It's you that I'm worried about. Someone could mug an old lady right in front of you today and I don't think you would notice."

"Are you saying I can't do my job?" Emma snapped at her.

"No, that's not what I'm saying at all. You're a good copper, Emma, but your mind's not on the job this morning."

"You're starting to sound like Inspector Gold."

"I'm sorry. I'm just worried about you." Sally put an arm around Emma's back. "I really think you should take the rest of the day off. I'm sure the sergeant will square it with Inspector Gold."

"I'm not so sure about that. Plus, I'd just go crazy sitting around at home. The DPS will want to talk to me anyways, so there is no use going home now."

For a moment, they walked in silence. "Listen, I have an idea. We're just around the corner from Tanner Street."

When Emma regarded her blankly, Sally explained. "Rebecca Williams has a house there."

"So?" Emma wasn't sure she was following what Sally was saying.

"I think we should take a look. I know this is a case for the DPS, but Will would never have hurt that woman, and you know that."

Emma wished she could be certain, but she had seen drugs do all sorts of things to people. Modern designer drugs could be the most unpredictable. Will hadn't been himself when she had found him in that hotel room. He hadn't even remembered that they had spoken on the phone twenty minutes earlier. Anything was possible. Emma didn't even want to think about all the possibilities of what could have happened between Will and this woman, but her mind kept coming back to scenarios, one grizzlier and more damning than the last.

"We'll just take a look, nothing more." Sally had apparently taken her silence for hesitation, when Emma hadn't really given the issue any thought yet. But her instinct was to back-off, leave it to the DPS and CID.

"What if she didn't live alone, what if we have to break the news to some unsuspecting husband? What would you tell him? We don't actually know anything, aside from the fact that she was murdered," Emma protested, but they had already turned into Tanner Avenue.

It was definitely one of the nicer spots of Sun Hill, not an area they were called out to often. Emma followed Sally down the road, stopping in front of number 17. The house was a faint yellow two-story building, slightly set back from the road. Roses were planted to both sides of the path leading up to a modernistic polished steel door. Sally walked up to it, and bent forwards to spy through the triangular window in the door. Unexpectedly the door slid open.

"Lock's been forced," Emma noted as Sally used her elbow to push the door open further. Emma was about to call it in when Sally had already disappeared inside the house. Emma followed her. She had just stepped into the corridor when she heard two male voices coming from the stairwell to her left. Getting out her asp, Emma slipped around the corner, eyes still on the stairwell. A second later, two men in black clothes and balaclavas came running down the stairs. **  
**  
Emma surged forwards, blocking their way. "Oi, stop! Police!" The figures looked at each other. Emma tried to gauge their reaction when one of them already delivered a blow to her stomach. Doubling over, Emma cried out in pain. One of the men shoved her aside, sending her tumbling into a small table. She could only watch as they ran down the hallway and escaped out of the front door.

"Emma, are you all right?" Sally was suddenly standing over her, obviously having seen what happened. She was starting to help her up but Emma waved her off.

"Go, go after them," she gasped, instinctively curling an arm around her midsection.

Emma pulled herself up by the edge of the table, still panting slightly, when her gaze fell on a neat pile of envelopes stacked on it. Curiously the top envelope wasn't addressed to Rebecca Williams, but to a person called Moira Bliss.

Putting on her gloves, Emma had a look through the rest of the pile. The return addresses varied, but none of them was addressed to Rebecca Williams. The addressee on all of them was Moira Bliss. Curious to find out what their murder victim had been doing with someone else's mail, Emma turned over the first envelope, much to her disappointment finding it still sealed. In fact, none of the letters had been opened, even though they dated back several weeks.

But before she could give the mystery more thought, Sally came back running inside, her face reddened from running. "Sorry, I lost them. But they dropped this." She held up a duffle bag. The letters forgotten, Emma unzipped it. Inside was a laptop computer.

"You all right? You don't look so well," Sally asked, while Emma turned the computer over in her hands.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she replied, her thoughts elsewhere. It was tempting to try and have a closer look around, maybe even try and see what was on the laptop.

"It's not your typical burglary, though," Sally remarked from the other room. Emma put the laptop back into the bag and followed her.

"Look, the stereo, the plasma TV, all still here," Sally pointed out. Indeed, the room didn't even look like it had been searched. Either it was a case of very tidy burglars, or they had known exactly what they were looking for.

"They were here about that laptop," Emma agreed.

"You know we need to call..."

"Shush." Emma put a finger to her lips. She'd just heard a car pull up outside.

"You think they are coming back," Sally whispered, not sounding her usual confident self.

"I don't think so, they were on foot," Emma reminded her. Outside, a car door slammed, then another. Emma and Sally waited in silence.

A few moment later, they could hear a voice coming from outside. "See that? Lock's been picked. We need the CSE here from the looks of it."

Emma recognized the voice at once - it was that of Mickey Webb. They should have figured that CID would turn up sooner rather than later, but this soon? Emma cast a desperate look around, searching for a point of escape. She heard the front door being pushed open, and footfalls in the hallway.

"I'll check upstairs, you take downstairs." Another voice, Sam Nixon's, came from the hallway.

"The patio," Sally mouthed, pointing towards a set of glass doors, leading out to the patio and the back garden. Emma nodded. Still wearing gloves she pressed the handle and slid open the door. They ran outside, crossing the patio as quickly as possible, praying that the detectives hadn't seen them. A rose garden stretched out behind the building, bordered by a fence at the back end. Sally scaled it with ease, while Emma had some trouble following her, her gut still sore from where she'd been punched earlier. They dropped to the ground on the other side in an overgrown garden.

"Do you think they saw us?" Emma asked, bending over with her hands braced on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

"I don't think so, but we have to tell someone." Sally looked around nervously.

"What do you mean?"

Sally gave her a severe look and held up the duffle bag. Emma had forgotten all about the laptop.

"Damn. You're right; we need to let the sergeant know. He is going to go mental," Emma said, not relishing the idea. "We better get back to the station as soon as possible, get it over with."

Emma's mobile rang at that moment. It was Inspector Gold on the other end of the line. "Emma, DPS wants to talk to you as soon as possible. Sergeant Stone told me that you're partnered up with Sally today? They want to talk to her too, so you better come back to the station as soon as possible."

"Yes, ma'am," Emma said and hung up. "DPS wants to talk to us," she told Sally in response to her questioning look.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

oOo

Half an hour later, Emma and Sally came walking back into the station and ran straight into Sergeant Stone, waiting for them w

Half an hour later, Emma and Sally came walking back into the station and ran straight into Sergeant Stone, waiting for them with arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I was wondering when you were going to turn up."

"I can explain, Sarge," Emma began, but he cut her off with the wave of a hand. "DPS is waiting for you. Sally can fill me in on what you've been up to and explain why you have been out of radio contact."

Sally felt her face heat up. She knew she was in trouble, again. She only wished that for once, she'd think before leaping into action. He was right - she didn't know when to jump in and when to pull back. This would definitely have been a case for the latter.

"Come." Stone lead the way to his office and closed the door behind them.

"I want to know everything, from the beginning." He sat down on the edge of his desk, leaving her standing in an uncomfortable position. Sally felt like she was back in school, about to be sent to detention. "Well, let's hear it, PC Armstrong."

"Sarge, PC Keane and I were patrolling the area around Canley Park when we….I noticed that we were just down the street from where the victim lived. We...we just wanted to take a look, but when we got to the door, we found it had been forced open. So, we decided to go in." Sally paused, waiting for the thunderstorm that was surely to follow, but the sergeant said nothing. Feeling a bit like a bug under a microscope, Sally eventually continued. What had seemed like a good idea at the time was turning out hard to explain.

"We went in when we noticed two men in the building. They were masked and had clearly been in the process of burgling the house. PC Keane tried to stop them, but they knocked her over. I tried chasing after them, but lost them in the park. They did drop a bag, with a laptop in it." Sally put the duffle on the table, avoiding the sergeant's eyes. They had messed up, badly. She should never have gotten Emma into this.

"Okay, you two dropped yourselves into a right mess there. CID needs to know about this and the laptop needs to be analysed by the tech guys. I'll spare you the lecture, this time." Stone paused again. "Can you describe the two men?"

"They were wearing balaclavas, so I didn't see their faces. I might be able to hazard a guess about height and build, but nothing that will get us anywhere."

"Shame. I'll clear your little detour with the inspector and CID, but I do not want to see a repeat performance, is that clear?"

"Yes, Sarge. Thank you, Sarge." Sally hesitated for a moment. "Is there any news about Will?"

"Nothing, but no news is probably good news at this point," Stone said. "Is there something you want to tell me, PC Armstrong?"

Sally had been thinking about it all morning, ever since she had seen that tablet at the hospital. The case had basically dropped into their laps. They had been at the pub dealing with a customer refusing to pay for his drinks when Will had spotted a drug deal going down less than ten feet away from them.

They had intervened immediately. One of the men had started running and she had chased after him. It had been pretty crowded outside the pub and she'd had trouble keeping up with him, when he ran across the busy street, knocking down a cyclist in the process. She had been forced to abandon her pursuit to make sure that the cyclist was all right. By the time the paramedics had arrived, Will had radioed her and told her that he'd take care of the rest and told her to stay with the cyclist for the moment. She had never doubted that Will had made the arrest and taken the man back to the station. He had even told her about it, when she'd asked about it the next day. She couldn't believe that Will would just make something like this up. He would have no reason to do that.

"Well, is there something?" The sergeant interrupted her thoughts.

"No, Sarge, there isn't."

He looked at her long and hard, but she held his gaze without flinching. He knew something - that was for certain. "Let me know when you change your mind. And think about what you are going to tell the DPS." With that, he left her alone in the office. Sally swallowed. She had dropped herself right in it - if it turned out that Will had taken a bribe from the guy at the pub and cut him loose in exchange.

oOo

Emma had hoped that it wouldn't be her father leading the inquiry into Rebecca's murder, but he had investigated incidents at Sun Hill station before, so she wasn't surprised to see him and another DPS detective when she entered the interview room.

After setting the record for the tape, they started questioning her about the events of the morning.

"Can you please describe the events that led up to you finding PC Fletcher near the scene of the crime in room 204 of the Gardena Hotel at 32 Chestnut Drive in Canley?"

"When PC Fletcher missed the briefing at the beginning of shift this morning, I became concerned and Sergeant Stone suggested that I try to contact PC Fletcher to find out why he hadn't shown up for work. I managed to reach him on his mobile phone. We spoke for a few minutes and I got the impression that he was unwell." It was hard for her to relate the sequence of events in this cold, objective fashion, but that was the DPS wanted, a clear account of the facts. She had been first on the scene of a homicide

"Can you describe the condition he was in when you entered the room?

"He was incoherent, when I arrived. He didn't recall that we'd spoken on the phone earlier. He seemed surprised to see me. I tried questioning him about what had happened, but he was unable to answer any questions. I then went to the bathroom to verify what he had told me earlier on the phone."

"That there was a body in the bathroom?"

"Yes, that was what he told me both on the phone and after I arrived at the hotel room."

"What were PC Fletcher's exact words when he told you about the body?"

"On the phone, he told me that Rebecca was dead and that he thought she had been murdered." Emma struggled to recall Will's words. The events were vividly burned into her memory and yet at the same time, everything seemed unreal, almost like a dream.

"Those were his exact words?"

"Yes, yes, as far as I can remember." Emma fumbled; the probing questions combined with her own doubts and wishes made her question her memory of the event.

"Did you know the victim?"

"No, I didn't."

"Had you seen her before?"

"No, sir, I hadn't," Emma replied truthfully.

"So, it is safe to say that you aren't all that well informed about PC Fletcher's private life."

"I guess not. He hasn't spoken much about his private life recently." Will had seemed somewhat distant lately, but she hadn't thought much of it, until now, that was.

"You say recently, was there a point when this was different? Maybe at a time when you were closer?"

"We were close at one time. Will...PC Fletcher was there for me during a difficult time a while back." Emma resented having to answer the question, but knew it was needed for the purpose of the tape.

"Would it be correct that you still hold romantic feelings towards PC Fletcher, even though he clearly was in a relationship with another woman?" She had known that the subject was going to come up, still she felt ill prepared when confronted with the question.

"No, that is not true," Emma protested. She was over Will, as far as romantic feelings were concerned, she told herself. They were just friends. The past had nothing to do with that.

"Interesting. Yet, you rushed to his rescue." It was a remark, not a question, but it was clearly meant to provoke a response.

"I would do the same for any colleague. When I called him, I could tell he wasn't well, so it was my responsibility to make sure," Emma said, not least trying to convince herself.

"And it is a good thing you did. You saved his life when you resuscitated him. The question is just what put him in this condition in the first place? The doctors have ruled out physical injuries and they suspect a drug overdose. Did you know PC Fletcher was taking drugs recreationally?"

"I don't believe this is the case at all. He would never use drugs voluntarily."

"So you weren't aware. Were you also unaware of his financial difficulties?"

Emma simply shook her head. She had had no idea.

"Would you please answer for the tape?"

"I wasn't aware of any financial difficulties." Emma had to force out the words. Admittedly, they weren't as close as they had once been, when she'd still been with Matt, he'd helped her a great deal to realize the truth about her husband and finally break free of him. "He didn't ask you for money then?"

"No, he didn't."

"Well, he did get money from somewhere seeing that he paid back over two grand worth of debts yesterday and there was a substantial amount of money in his locker as well. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, I don't," Emma replied, her heart sinking with every question. She was learning things about Will she had never thought possible. Suddenly, it didn't seem so impossible anymore that Will had taken the drugs voluntarily and who knew what had happened next. The possibility that he had bee drugged against his will, then had his hotel room broken into and his girlfriend murdered without noticing seemed like an awfully big stretch. If only Will were awake to give them his version of the story. It was the job of the DPS to dig up dirt and it seemed unfair that Will didn't have the chance to fight back while his reputation was being trashed.

"That will be all for now. Interview concluded at 3.15 p.m."

oOo

Emma was sitting in the cafeteria, playing with the sandwich on her plate, when Sally came walking up to her. When she saw the grim look on Sally's face, Emma felt cold fear settle in her stomach.

"Sally, what's wrong? Is it Will?"

"No, no. I haven't heard anything new about his condition," Sally replied, but didn't appear to be much relieved. She pulled out a chair opposite Emma and sat down. "I think I screwed up," she confessed after a moment of silence

"With the DPS interview?"

Sally nodded.

"Don't worry, it's their job to dig up dirt. Nobody is perfect, especially not in this job. You can't stick to the rules a hundred percent all the time," Emma reassured her, fervently hoping that what she was saying was true for Will as well.

"Remember when I told you about the arrest in connection what that drug at the hospital?" Sally asked.

"Of course. You probably saved Will's life with that information."

"Well, it wasn't exactly like I told you and Sergeant Stone, at least I don't know if it happened like that."

"You weren't there and Will was covering for you?"

"Sort of. I wasn't there when he made the arrest. He only told me about the details the next day. The DPS have found out that there was never any arrest and that Will didn't report back to CID about the new drug."

Emma didn't know what to say.

"And did you know he had debts?"

"The DPS told me, but I didn't know before."

"I feel bad for saying this, but yesterday I would have sworn that Will would never do anything like this, but today, I'm not sure what to think any more."

"You're right, you should feel bad," Emma snapped, not so much angry at Sally as at herself. She had those very same doubts, but hearing them spelled out was another matter. "Will is fighting for his life and you are accusing him of being corrupt,"

"I never accused him of anything," Sally retorted sharply. "Those are facts, Emma. I don't want to believe that Will killed that woman. I really don't. But he lied about the arrest and he lied about the drugs."

"I just hope he wakes up soon. It seems so unfair that he can't even defend himself. I'm telling you, someone must have drugged him."

"I appreciate that you care about your colleague, but cut down on the gossip, right?" Inspector Gold had suddenly appeared next to their table.

"Yes, ma'am," Emma and Sally replied in unison.

"Now that is understood, I want you to go home, PC Keane. You are no use to anyone like this. Get some rest. I expect you to be sharp tomorrow." Emma was sure that she meant it.

"Ma'am." Emma pushed back her chair and got up.

oOo

She had gone home at first. Tried to eat something, tried to watch television, even tried to read a book, but she couldn't let go of her worries. After less than ninety minutes at home, she gave up, grabbed her purse and car keys, and headed to her car and drove herself to St. Hugh's.

Once there and out of her car, she felt a lot less confident. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, anything to get out of her flat, but if she was honest, there was nothing she could do at the hospital. She needed to find a way to prove that Will was innocent and she wasn't going to find that here. Still, she was there now and maybe, just maybe there was some good news about Will. The doctor's hadn't told her much and had refused to tell her what his chances were, but their grim faces had already given her the answer. She had seen it for herself. She had been there in the ambulance when he'd gone into another seizure, one that seemed to last forever and when he'd finally gone still, his heart had stopped beating. They had managed to bring him back just before arriving at the hospital.

Emma had already walked past the shop and towards the elevator when she turned around. She had eaten only the chocolate bar Sally had bought for her so far that day and she was really starting to feel hungry now. She entered the shop, not caring that everything was probably ridiculously overpriced. She picked out a sandwich and was heading for the till next to the door when she passed a rack of books and magazines. Her gaze fell on a black and white paperback, with a statue on the cover. But it was the name written in huge golden letters across the top - Moira Bliss - that made her look twice. It was the same unusual name the mail in Rebecca William's house had been addressed to. Her curiosity piqued, Emma grabbed a copy and went to pay for the book and the sandwich.

oOo

The same young nurse she had met earlier was still sitting behind the desk at the nurse's station when she got there.

"Hello there again," she greeted Emma warmly. She had to see hundreds of people walk in and out every day and she still recognized Emma despite her not wearing her uniform now. "You really must be worried about your colleague."

"Yes, he's a friend," Emma admitted, her thoughts going back to her interview with the DPS.

"Then maybe you can help us out. The police gave us the address for his parents, but we can't seem to reach them. Do you know if he has any other family in the area?"

"He's got a sister, but I don't have her address or phone number. I'm sure someone at the station does, though."

"It would be good if you could notify her as soon as possible."

"Is it that bad?"

"It's not looking good, I'm afraid. Thanks to your colleague, we now know what he has taken, but with a drug this new, there are no antidotes yet. Treating the symptoms and waiting for the body to metabolize the drug is all we can do at the moment."

"So, he hasn't woken up yet, has he?"

"No, he still unconscious."

"Can I sit with him? Just for a while?"

"Why not?" She regarded Emma with sympathy. "Follow me." Emma followed the nurse into the ward. Will had been moved since the morning and was now in a small room at the far end of a corridor. Emma had thought herself prepared, but still - seeing Will like this, dependant on life support and hooked up to monitors was like a kick in the guts. She thanked the nurse and sank down in the chair next to the bed.

oOo

She had tried talking to Will, but it'd felt too awkward, so she had soon fallen silent. Still, not wanting to leave Will just yet, she pulled out the book she'd bought. She started flicking aimlessly through the pages without taking in anything at first, but soon she was captivated by the words, her attention fully on the book, her surroundings forgotten.

"PC Keane, weren't you ordered to go home?" Emma looked up and saw Sergeant Stone standing in the open door. "I'm sorry, Sarge. I was going crazy at home," she apologised.

"Nobody said you couldn't come here." Stone entered the room and leaned against the inside of the window facing the hallway. "Interesting choice of reading material," he commented after a moment.

"Sarge?"

"Rebecca Wilson was really Moira Bliss." Emma stared at him. At least it would explain why their victim had another woman's mail lying on her coffee table.

"At least that's what she tried to make the world believe," Stone added.

"What about the real Moira Bliss?" Emma managed, still reeling from the revelation.

"Nobody knows her, or so it seems. The name's obviously fake and the people at the publishing house have never met her." According to them, the only person she dealt with directly was Rebecca Williams.

"So, Rebecca Williams and Moira Bliss could be the same person, in theory."

"In theory, yes. But tech support found some correspondence on the laptop that suggests that emails have been going back and forth between Rebecca Williams and Moira Bliss for several years. Rebecca Williams isn't Moira Bliss, unless she has been emailing herself almost daily for four years."

"What's in the emails?"

"CID is still reading them. There are over a thousand of them, apparently."

Emma didn't want to know why the sergeant was this well informed about a case that technically didn't concern uniform anymore. "But it looks like Will...Will!" Stone surged forwards to Will's bedside. Emma turned around to see that Will's eyes were open and full of panic. Immediately, he started gagging, struggling against the tube in his throat. Stone was holding Will's hands down, while Emma looked on helplessly. "Get a doctor, quick," Stone yelled.

oOo

"Is he all right?" Emma asked anxiously as soon as the doctor emerged from Will's room.

"It's too early to tell if there are any lasting effects of the overdose, but the fact that he is starting to breathe on his own again is indeed encouraging." Emma felt herself relax a little bit.

"When do you think we can talk to him?" Emma understood he needed to ask that question, still she couldn't help but detect coldness in the sergeant's voice,

"I don't think you understand."

"What does that mean?!" Emma asked desperately, panic flooding her.

"It means that his neurological responses so far have been irregular. The drug itself, the seizures or the fact that he was hypoxic for some time could all have caused lasting damage. It is too early to tell for certain at this point. When the effects of the drug have worn off, we should be able to make a better assessment of his condition. If you would excuse me now, we are stretched pretty thin this time of night," the doctor told them and left.

Emma checked her watch, and much to her surprise, it was already 10.30 p.m. Time had really flown by while she'd read. "I should go," she told Stone.

"I'll walk you out," he replied.

"Of course," she replied, wondering what was on Stone's mind. It didn't seem like him at all. She always had trouble reading him, but she got the feeling that he was worried, and not just about Will.

They were just leaving the ICU when he spoke. "The DPS, did they ask you about the drugs?"

"Yes, of course. Why are you asking?"

He ignored the question.

"And what did you tell them?"

"I told them the truth, that Will would never use drugs voluntarily."

"Do you believe that?" Emma stopped, looking at Stone. The expression on his face was dead serious.

"What is this!?" she exploded, "You believe he's guilty, too, don't you? You are supposed to be on his side!""

"Trust me, I am. I'm just trying to protect you," he replied, ignoring her outburst. Without another look at her, he walked away, leaving her standing in the hallway.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

oOo

The publishing house was an impressive sight. Rising higher than the surrounding buildings at the waterfront, its architecture was modern, with odd angles, and large mirrored glass panes in place of windows.

"Business must be going well," Mickey commented, giving the building an appraising look, as they climbed out of the car in the parking lot behind the building.

Sam shrugged. "Orgon Publishing - it's not like you read that name on the back of many books. They were on the verge of bankruptcy a few years ago, if I recall right."

"I wouldn't know too much about that. I'm not such a big reader myself. Why, have you read the books by this Moira Bliss?" Mickey asked as they walked across the parking lot, rounding the building.

"As a matter of fact, I have and they are quite good." Sam felt herself blush. In truth, her daughter was a rather big fan of the books, but when she'd left a copy lying around, Sam had had a look and had been pleasantly surprised.

"No need to get defensive. I just didn't think that you liked crime-fiction. It's not like we don't get enough of the real thing every day." It was true, Sam didn't have much time to read between raising her daughter and working long hours, but when she did get around to it, she normally didn't go for thrillers. Mickey was right about that.

"I'm not saying what she writes has anything to do with real life police work, but then again, I haven't met any fallen angels in our line of work, yet," Sam said and laughed.

"Fallen angels?" Mickey echoed.

"Her main character - Zariel is a fallen angel," Sam explained.

"Who solves crimes?"

"Something along that line," Sam replied, trying not to sound too defensive.

"I'm sorry, Sam, but that's even worse than I thought," Mickey said laughingly. "Fantasy thrillers! Like the world hasn't seen enough fantasy novels in the last few years." They had reached the front of the building. Up close it looked even more impressive than it had from the car. There had to be some serious money behind the company.

Sam and Mickey walked through the glass doors and into the spacious foyer. It was all light wood, glass and polished steel. With the early morning sunlight streaming in through the huge windows, it was almost blindingly bright. But while Mickey was still looking around, Sam had already walked up to the reception desk. Mickey quickly followed her.

"I'm afraid that neither of them can be disturbed at the moment," the young receptionist was just saying.

"And I'm afraid that they will have to make time. We are with Sun Hill CID and it is urgent that we speak to them," Sam insisted, not in the mood for jumping through hoops.

"Oh, you are here about Rebecca Williams. But they really cannot be disturbed right now; they are in a very important meeting." She leaned forwards, whispering gleefully, "You know Moira Bliss? She is here."

Sam and Mickey looked at each other. This was better than they could have hoped for. It could have taken them weeks to track down Moira Bliss merely on the basis of her email correspondence. "In that case, we really need to see them, all three of them," Sam told her firmly. The receptionist looked at her apprehensively.

"Miss Bliss could be in danger and you wouldn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her," Mickey added gravely in an attempt to convince her.  
"Well, of course not! In that case, I will obviously make an exception. Third floor, first door on the right. I'll tell them to expect you." She picked up the phone on her desk.

"Thank you."

"The elevator is over there." She pointed them in the right direction, already dialling the phone.

oOo

The interior design of the third floor was in tune with the modern Scandinavian style architecture of the rest of the building. The off-white walls were decorated with framed posters of books published by the company, as well as large black-and-white photographs of their authors. Sam stepped in closer, studying the captions of the photographs. The names were largely unfamiliar and not surprisingly, while Moira's books were represented on the walls, her face wasn't. But it seemed like they were about to meet the mystery woman, one way or another.

"You know what," Mickey interrupted Sam's thoughts. "I reckon this isn't about books at all. Look at this place." Mickey vaguely waved at their surroundings. "There is something dodgy going on here and I reckon it's drugs."

The suggestion seemed far out, but Sam had to admit that it had crossed her mind as well. "Because of Will you mean?"

"Well, they had to come from somewhere. You have seen Rebecca Williams' house and now this place," Mickey said and shrugged, "I simply don't think there is this much money in what they are doing."

Sam stopped and looked at him. "You don't believe this story about Will making up the arrest and pocketing the drugs himself, do you?" To tell the truth Sam wasn't sure what to believe.

"I'm just saying that you never know. He wouldn't be the first officer who couldn't resist a bribe. It happens; we've seen it before. You can never really know people, not even the ones you work with."

"I know what you mean." Sam couldn't agree more. Mickey had spelled out what she had only been thinking. They had seen their share of corruption. "That must be it." They arrived at a glass door, allowing them to see into an office. A woman sat behind a wooden desk, working on a computer.

She didn't seem to have noticed their presence yet, so Mickey knocked against the glass door. The woman's head shot up. For the moment, she wore an expression of guilt, as if she had just been caught doing something she shouldn't have, but it was immediately replaced by a more friendly expression. Taking it as their sign to enter, Mickey and Sam stepped into the secretary's office.

"We are here to see Mr. and Mrs. Orgon," Sam said firmly, readying herself for another wave of protest.

For a moment, it looked like the secretary was going to argue with them. "They are still with a client," she said, but it was merely a statement of fact.

"We know. We want to speak to her as well." Even Mickey was starting to sound annoyed that they were given the run-around.

"Well, don't let me stop you," she told them and picked up the phone on her desk. "Mrs. Orgon? The police are here." She listened for a moment. "No, they insist."

"Yes, I told them. No, they won't wait."

Mickey sighed. He'd had enough. Ignoring the secretary, he walked past her desk and knocked firmly on the door at the end of the room. The reply was muffled by the thick door, but Mickey didn't care either way. They had wasted too much time already. He pressed down on the door handle and opened the door.

"I don't believe this," he muttered a second later - it was the only thing that came to mind, upon setting eyes on the scene in front of him. She was out of uniform, wearing a smart black business suit instead, but he clearly recognized one of the people in the other room as Emma Keane. She was flanked by a man and a woman, both in their fifties.

"This isn't a good time," the other woman, a middle-aged redhead, said in an admonishing tone.

"I gathered that," Sam said, while Mickey was still staring at the scene in front of them. Sam stepped inside and Mickey followed her a moment later.

"I'm DI Nixon, this is DC Webb. We're from Sun Hill," Sam introduced them, and then faltered, still reeling from the surprise encounter. "Mr. and Mrs. Orgon I presume?" she finally managed, knowing she had to get a grip if she didn't want to give Emma away.

"Yes. Since you are already here, let me introduce you to Miss Bliss."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Emma said, smiling at the two detectives, but her smile was forced.

"If we could have a word with you, now, please." Sam tried to sound casual and innocuous, but she wasn't sure if she was pulling it off.

"I'll be right back," Emma told the publishers and followed Sam and Mickey back into the corridor. As soon as they were clear of the secretary's view, Sam turned to the young officer.

"What do you think you are doing here?" she asked, not even trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

"Investigating a murder," Emma replied coolly, not seeming the least bit bothered by their appearance. Sam wondered what the other woman had been thinking, coming here and posing as Moira Bliss. She wondered if Emma had been thinking at all.

"What makes you think that?" Mickey asked sharply, finally recovering his powers of speech.

"The missing manuscript. Whoever killed her also broke into her car and into her house, thinking that the manuscript would be there. They tried to steal the laptop, presumably for the same reason," Emma explained, the words flying fast from her mouth.

"Only we know that the manuscript isn't on the laptop. Instead, we now know that Rebecca wasn't really Moira Bliss."

"Right. The killer doesn't know that yet," Emma replied, sounding just a little bit smug  
"Assuming that you are right and that the killer really was after Moira and that somehow her agent got killed instead, did you even consider that they could be coming after you if they really bought your story?"

"They did believe me all right," Emma claimed proudly. Sam felt anger welling up inside her once again.

"How, exactly? Did you just walk in and tell them that you were the real Moira Bliss?" Mickey asked. He sounded more fascinated than angry.

"Something like that." Emma blushed.

Sam decided to let the matter drop for the moment. "We'll sort this out back at the station. I'm sure the DCI has a word or two to say about your little stunt here."

"What about right now? Are you going to tell them the truth?" Emma asked with much confidence now with the prospect of a dressing down by the DCI on the horizon.

Sam shook her head. "The damage is already done, so we might as well use it to our advantage."

"They've shown me some of the fan mail she's received in the last couple of months and while most it looks pretty harmless, she did receive a couple of threats as well, " Emma recalled.

"That could be a start. I'll see if they agree to turn them over to us," Mickey said and headed back towards the briefing room.

oOo

"So you just woke up this morning and decided to go undercover as a bestselling author?" Jack confronted her, his voice trembling with fury. They were alone in the DCI's office, but Emma didn't doubt that Jack's voice could be heard all the way to the CID office, where Sam and Mickey were in the process of examining the email correspondence and fan mail.

Emma hesitated for a moment, nervously licking her lips. "It wasn't quite like this, sir. I admit I didn't think things all the way through..." It had all made sense in her head. She had been thrilled when the idea had spontaneously come to her. It had seemed like the perfect solution – a way to both get Will cleared and find the real killer. Now, in the cold light of reason, the idea seemed flawed and ill-thought out.

"That is a serious understatement. Not only did you jeopardize a murder inquiry, but you also put yourself in considerable danger." Jack paused. "That being said, I'm not completely opposed to this idea, but I would have chosen an officer with a little more experience for this job. What I would like to know is why you did it?"

That question she could answer without effort. The thought had been on her mind every step of the way and kept her going now despite her own rising doubts.

"I wanted to help Will," Emma admitted. "I'm convinced he had nothing to do with Rebecca's murder. And I believe the real killer was after the manuscript and mistook Rebecca for Moira."

"If that is the case, then the list of suspects should be pretty narrow. Moira's identity was due to be revealed at a press conference tomorrow. Until then, only a handful people at the publishing house could have known," Jack's voice mellowed, the volume dropping down to normal levels.

"There is someone else who might have known as well. Moira has a biographer. It seems like the publishing house has been trying to get her to agree to meet with his journalist who was going to write her biography." Emma related what the publishers had told her before Sam and Mickey had shown up.

"I hope you didn't agree to meet him," Jack said with a barely suppressed sigh.

"I didn't, but I asked for his name and number and told them that I would think about it." Frankly, Emma had considered meeting the biographer, not just because she needed to learn more about the woman whose role she had assumed, but also because he was a potential suspect. Somehow, she couldn't picture either of the two owners of the publishing house sneaking around a hotel like the Gardena in the middle of the night.

"All right, give his details to Mickey. Tell him that I want him to run the usual checks into his background. Tell him to have a go at Orgon Publishing and its owners as well."

"Yes, sir," Emma replied.

"You can go now, but I want you to continue working with CID on this case. I'll clear it with Inspector Gold."

"Thank you, sir." Emma was relieved that she had gotten off so easily.

oOo

"What I don't understand here is the motive. If we assume that this has nothing to do with Will or the drugs, and that the murder instead was about getting the manuscript, why would any of the people who actually knew about the manuscript and knew about Rebecca posing as Moira and knew that there was only one copy, why would they try and steal the manuscript? Certainly, Moira bliss had a contract with the publishing house, so they would have gotten their hands on it anyways," Sam considered as she, Mickey and Emma were discussing what they knew about the case so far.

While Emma was convinced that the manuscript played a key role in the motive of the case, she had to admit that she hadn't thought this far. Maybe she had been wrong to doubt the detectives.

"Apparently, it wasn't that simple. Tech support is still going over all the correspondence, but there appears to have been a heated argument over the royalty payments and some promotional campaign that the author apparently didn't agree with," Sam said, flipping through a bunch of print-outs with the crucial passages highlighted. "Just from the ones I've read, I'd say there was plenty of conflict all right."

"And considering their precarious financial state, it would give them motive," Mickey added, scribbling the pertinent details on the white board.

"Yeah, while you are at it, dig into their finances as well," Sam told him. "We need to get a better picture of the way their company runs. How many employees do they have, what's their position in the market, that sort of thing."

"Yes, guv."

Jack silently joined the group, studying what was up on the board so far. After a moment, he turned to his detectives.

"Where are we at finding the real Moira Bliss? If she was short-changed on her royalties, she could be another suspect," Jack inquired.

"I doubt it. Tech Support has managed to track down the emails to an Internet cafe in Brisbane, Australia. Unless we think that she got on a plane to England, tracked down her agent to a hotel room she just happened to share with a police officer..." Mickey trailed off,

"All right all right, we get the idea. It's a long shot, I admit it. Still, I want to know who she is. If Emma is going to continue this undercover operation, we need to know as much as possible about Moira Bliss."

"There is a press conference tomorrow and the publishing house wants me to be there. What are we going to do about that?" Emma spoke for the first time.

"I don't like the idea of you going public as Moira Bliss. But unless we want to tell the publishers the truth, which I don't think would be wise as long as they are still in the frame, we probably have no choice but to go ahead with the press conference…" Jack paused, then continued "…unless, of course, we manage to get a result by tomorrow. Emma, I want you to help PC Armstrong and Sergeant Stone with the CCTV footage. They managed to get some from shops along the street of the Gardena Hotel and there is a strong possibility that the killer was caught on it at some point. Since we don't know exactly who we are looking for, be on the lookout for anything and anyone sticking out or behaving suspiciously. I'll get onto the Australian authorities, see if we can't get a real name for Moira Bliss. Okay, so let's get back to it."

Sam and Mickey went back to their desks and Emma turned to leave. It was going to be a boring afternoon, watching CCTV tapes, but it was part of the job and if it helped find the real killer, Emma wasn't going to complain.

"Emma, a word." Jack stopped her before she was out the door.

"Sir?" Emma turned to face the DCI, feeling like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"What you did this morning was stupid and dangerous. Now, we are going to continue the operation for the moment, but I expect you to play by the rules, or you will be in serious trouble. I assume you have read her novels?"

"Yes, sir. I thought I'd do some more research on what has been in the press relating to the books and maybe have a look at those emails," Emma ventured. She knew she was on thin ice there. She had stayed up most of the night after returning from the hospital, reading her way through the two thick volumes, but having read a book was hardly a substitute for having written it.

"Good thinking," Jack commended her. Emma couldn't help but smile as she walked out into the hallway.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

oOo

Excuse the mess, please," Jason Bowman, free-lance journalist and would-be biographer of Moira Bliss, apologized to Sam and Mickey as they followed him into his small study. Given the size of his council flat, it was surprising that he'd even managed to set aside one room for work. From the looks of it, however, Sam doubted that there was much work going on. Books were piled up on shelves and on the floor and the desk was stacked with papers, letters and more books. Even the chair behind the desk was heaped with books. Only the couch squeezed beneath the window was free of clutter. Sam wondered if Jason slept on it.

"It's nothing we haven't seen before," Sam told him, privately amazed at the mess.

"Please, sit." Jason indicated the couch, while he quickly cleared the chair behind his desk, simply by piling everything on top of the desk. A pile of books cluttered to the floor, but Jason didn't even seem to notice.

Sam and Mickey sat down. "I assume you are here about Rebecca Williams. It really is most tragic."

"I see news travels fast. Where did you hear about her death?"

Jason hesitated. "From Valery, Valery Orgon, the publisher of Moira's books. When I heard about her death, I immediately feared that I'd lose the chance to finally write Moira's biography. Rebecca promised me that she was going to arrange a meeting before the press conference."

"Did she now?" Jason Bowman didn't strike her as the type Valery Orgon would hire to do anything. His scruffy and unkempt appearance didn't fit at all with the image she'd gotten of the publishing house. Plus, with the kind of history between him and Valery, she was surprised they were in contact at all.

"Why shouldn't she?" Jason asked sharply.

Before Sam had a chance to politely phrase her thoughts, Mickey spoke, "Maybe because you have a reputation for harassing women. She must have been aware of what happened between you and Valery Orgon."

"That was a misunderstanding." Jason's posture was defensive, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"A rape charge was a misunderstanding? As in she said no and you heard yes?"

"The charges were dropped, by her. I have never been convicted of raping anyone. I wouldn't."

"But you would stalk women? Is that it? Two of your former girlfriends now have a restraining order against you."

"You are twisting everything around," Jason protested. "Besides, I don't understand what all this has to do with Rebecca's death."

"All the calls you made to her cell phone? Looks like harassment to me," Sam said coolly.

"It wasn't like that. I wasn't interested in Rebecca – romantically, I mean. But writing Moira's biography means a lot to me."

"Personally or professionally?"

"Both," Jason said, not explaining further. But his suddenly reddening face easily gave away his feelings for their mystery woman.

Sam was starting to think that that it wouldn't be a good idea to send Emma to meet Jason. He appeared harmless enough to her, more like a schoolboy with a crush, but his past spoke for itself. She just hoped that the DCI would see it the same way.

"Where were you last night?" Mickey changed the subject, trying to throw Jason off.

"I was at home." Jason was firm.

"I assume no one can confirm that?

"Not quite. I was with a woman." Sam tried to hide her surprise. What woman would go for this guy?

"The name of that woman?" Mickey asked,

"I can't tell you, I really can't." Jason shook his head. "Lives could be in danger," he whispered dramatically.

Sam looked at Mickey, certain that they were thinking the same thing.

"Mr. Bowman. If you have an alibi, you need to tell us."

"Was it Valery Orgon?" Sam asked, as a sudden realization came to her. It was all about Valery Orgon. They had asked the Orgons about their alibis earlier that day and while they had been able to confirm that Mr. Orgon had been at a conference in Leeds, Mrs. Orgon had claimed that she had been home alone.

Jason stared at Sam. The expression on his face was a clear answer. Mickey didn't seem less surprised.

"You spent the whole night together?"

"Yes." As odd as it seemed, Sam believed him.

"So," Sam ventured, curious to find out if she had gotten Jason right, "the whole biography business was just a front, an excuse to get to spend time with Valery. I'm sure her husband wasn't pleased that you were still seeing her."

"Her husband has cheated on her with every secretary in the office," Jason spat. "He doesn't deserve a woman like Valery."

"Does he know about the affair?"

"Of course not. And we are always very careful. Please, you can't tell him!" Jason pleaded.

"We'll see about that." Mickey said.

"Whose idea was it then that you should write Moira Bliss' biography, if it all was just a scheme to get to spend time with Valery Orgon." There was only one thing that bugged Sam about this theory. If Jason didn't really care at all about writing the biography, then why had he left so many messages with Rebecca Williams.

"It was her idea, I admit it. When she proposed it, I hadn't even read the books. But once I did, I was truly fascinated. I wanted to meet the woman capable of writing like this. Wouldn't you?" That would explain the messages. She had read the messages and they had had an obsessive tone to them that she wasn't comfortable with at all, not when sending Emma to meet Bowman alone.

"I haven't read the books," Mickey admitted, bringing Sam's attention back to the present. "When was the last time that you met Rebecca Williams?"

"I don't think we ever met personally. We spoke on the phone sometime last week. To tell the truth, we had something of an argument. She kept putting me off, telling me that Moira didn't want me as her biographer."

"So why did you keep leaving messages, asking her to call you back?" Sam probed further, so far unhappy with their interview. Jason seemed to have an alibi and no clear-cut motive and still he gave her the creeps.

"I thought she was lying," Jason replied.

"Why did you think she would lie to you?"

"Because she was a liar," Jason said with sudden fury. He seemed surprised by his own outburst and picked up a Rubik's cube from his desk and started toying with it nervously.

"I guess you are going to find out sooner or later anyways. Valery told me that Rebecca was really Moira Bliss. Well, I knew she wasn't, but Valery believed her."

"How did you know she wasn't?" Sam asked. They had only found out because they'd read Rebecca's correspondence with the real Moira Bliss, so she was more than curious how Bowman, who really didn't seem all that bright to her, had figured it out.

"She wasn't the type, far too small minded and shallow to have written the Zariel series," Jason said derisively, obviously not minding to speak ill of the dead.

"Did you tell Valery that you thought she was lying?"

"Of course I did, the night of Rebecca's death, as a matter of fact. I don't think she even cared that Rebecca could be a fraud. She needs someone to appear publicly as Moira Bliss. I love her, but I wouldn't have put it past her to hire an actress to play the part tomorrow. You can't image how relieved she was when the real Moira Bliss turned up this morning." From what Mickey had learned about Orgon publishing as a company Sam wasn't surprised at Valery's desperation.  
It was probably the reason she had accepted Emma so easily in her under cover role.

"Have you by any chance spoken to the real Moira Bliss?" Jason asked keenly.

"Yes, we have," Sam replied, not sure where he was going.

"Could you maybe arrange a meeting?"

"That's not our job. We believe Miss Bliss already has your details and it will be up to her if she wants to meet with you," Mickey told him. In truth it was up to the DCI if 'Moira' met with Jason Bowman. While Sam still thought he was a creep, she didn't think he made a very good suspect in their case. Besides the alibi, which Valery had yet to confirm, she couldn't really see his motive for the killing.

"You think she could still be in danger?"

Sam hesitated for a moment. A little warning might keep Jason in check, but it could also make him suspicious of Emma. "We have advised her to be careful. But at this moment, we aren't aware of any immediate threat to her safety."

"Are you sure? I mean the person who killed Rebecca might have really meant to kill Moira. And have you seen the fan mail she's been getting? There is some really sick stuff in there."  
"What kind of sick stuff'?" Mickey asked.

"You know, people threatening her. Don't tell me you aren't taking this seriously!"

"Threatening her over what? I thought she writes fantasy novels," Mickey asked.

"You have no idea how crazy some of her fans are. At the end of her last book, the main character is poisoned. The rumour is that he will die in the next volume. There is talk of her ending the Zariel series after her next book."

"Okay. We will have a closer look at those threats," Sam said. They had gotten a few boxes worth of fan mail from the publisher's office that morning, but they had yet to sort through it. It was going to be a long day, unless they could corral some more people from uniform to help them out.

oOo

"What do you make of him?" Mickey asked as they walked back to the car. Sam was pleased to note that it had neither been broken in nor had the tyres been slashed in their absence.

"I'm not sure and that makes me nervous about the meet with Emma," she replied to Mickey's question, her thoughts returning to the interview.

"You reckon he is dangerous?"

"I'm not sure," Sam repeated, unhappy with how their interview had gone. Jason had seemingly had an answer for everything, but he still struck her as a creep obsessed with women he couldn't have. And Moira Bliss would just fit that bill too well.

Mickey unlocked the car and climbed in, Sam followed him on the passenger side, still pondering the interview. "We should take him to the station. Put on some pressure."

"On what grounds?" Mickey asked, surprised. Clearly, his assessment of the biographer had been different from hers. "We have nothing, but a bunch of messages, which he was able to explain, and he claims to have an alibi."

Mickey started the car and drove them off the estate.

"Do you believe his story about him and Valery Orgon having an affair?" Sam asked, once they were back on the road,

Mickey looked at her incredulously, then turned his attention back to the road.

"Why would you question that?"

"Just didn't sit right with me. He is an obsessive guy. The question is just with whom he is so obsessed. I believed him when he said that he wasn't interested in Rebecca, but is it really like he says, that he only had the idea to write the biography after Valery suggested it? He seemed a bit too taken with her for my taste."

"We need to know more about that rape allegation from five years back. We need to know what really happened between Jason and Valery. And as for your question, I think we should go ahead with the meet. That should tell us pretty quickly how interested he is in Moira Bliss," Mickey suggested.

"You might have a point there. But yeah, we should talk to Valery Orgon again, before the meet if possible. Let's drop by the publishing house now. We can ask her about Jason's alibi while we are at it."

Mickey immediately turned the car around, heading back to the waterfront.

"While we're there we should also look at the rest of the fan mail. Maybe Bowman is right and the threats are serious."

oOo

Sam ended up calling Jack from the publishing house, updating him on their interview with Jason Bowman and recommending that they proceed with the meet, albeit with extreme caution in view of Bowman's prior convictions.

Mickey and Sam spent the better part of the afternoon, poring over the boxes of fan mail. It was a tedious task, and the pile of letters containing threats was very small in comparison to the volume of letters in the boxes they had already gone through.

"This is getting us nowhere," Mickey remarked, not for the first time. "Most of these were written by teenagers with a crush on a fictional character." He tossed another pile of letters back into the cardboard box. "I guess most people who don't like her books simply don't bother writing to her about it. If you don't like it, don't read it, you know what I mean," Mickey said, leaning back in his chair.

"All the better for us." Sam looked up from the letter she'd just read. "Look at this one. I think it's quite interesting. "

She handed a neatly typed page over to Mickey. He started reading, then turned back to the pile where he'd been collecting the potential threats. "I've got several more that look just like it. Typewritten, the same tiny font, all saying that she stole their ideas. But they don't make any overt threats or anything."

"Well, I got a nice one here, too - written in blood no less. 'Zariel must not die'" Sam read aloud and bagged the letter in a plastic bag.

"Classy," Mickey remarked. "Unbelievable how worked up some people get over a bunch of books." Mickey shook his head in puzzlement. "We'll never get through the rest of this lot today. Let's just pack it up and take it back to the station and get someone from uniform to sort through the rest." Mickey started packing up the boxes.

"You're right, I guess. We need to get back to the nick anyways, see if Emma has had any luck setting up a meet with Jason."

"From what I saw, he'll jump on the chance to meet her."

"Or not." Sam said. "It may all have been an act."

"We'll know after the meet, I suppose. You going to help me carry this lot back to the car?

Sam looked at the collection of boxes on the table. Together with the ones stacked on the floor there had to be at least twenty, in addition to the two they already had at the station. They had worked their way through less than half of that in the past three hours and those were only the letters that had arrived within the last year. Sam had been introduced to Moira Bliss by her daughter Abi, who she had to admit was somewhat of a fan, but she had had no idea the books had such a huge following. Sam wondered if Emma wasn't out of her depth with this undercover operation, even if the DCI had given the go-ahead. If she went through with the press conference, if there was anyone out there who knew the real Moira Bliss, Emma could be in serious danger.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

oOo

Emma always thought that Sun Hill looked different by night. She didn't know why, but every time she worked the night shift, she had the feeling that she was patrolling different streets. Now from the backseat of their unmarked car, the perspective was yet another one. But Emma was far too tense to enjoy the scenery flying by, not that there was much to see as they neared the Markam industrial estate.

"You know, I still think this is a bad idea, no matter what the DCI says," Mickey said from the front of the car. He was driving the car, with Sam in the passenger seat and Emma in the backseat. They weren't the only ones tasked with the op though. While Emma obviously played the most important part, Mickey and Sam would be listening to every word that was said, and Tony and Reg were in another car, close by, just in case things went pear-shaped.

"There, turn left there," Sam instructed. "It should be right ahead. Better park here, we don't want to get too close."

Mickey did as she instructed and parked the car at the curb. Two cars passed by them, headlights off. Emma looked after them, wondering why there was this much traffic in an industrial area after dark. It had been Jason Bowman who had insisted they meet at the industrial estate. Emma had tried to suggest another venue, but he had been insistent, claiming that he was going to show her something. Emma had a bad feeling about the meet, but since the DCI had agreed to let her go ahead, she couldn't very well back out now. Besides, if it helped prove Will's innocence, it would be worth it.

"You clear on what you have to do?" Sam asked.

"Don't reveal any more than necessary, don't take any risks, and let him do the talking," Emma repeated what she had been told. They had been over this more than once at the station and she knew what she had to do. Another car drove past, parking maybe fifty meters down the road.

"There must be something going on out here," Mickey remarked. Emma had been thinking the same thing

"Could be one of those parties. We were called out here a couple of times last year," she said.

Her assumption seemed to be confirmed when four people got out of the other car, looking like they were dressed for a night out. They seemed to be in good spirits, laughing and talking loudly. She checked her watch. They were due to meet in five minutes time, down the road in front of an old warehouse.

"You should get going," Sam told her.

"I know," Emma answered, feeling more than just a bit apprehensive. She hadn't thought it would this be hard. But there was no going back now.

Mickey and Sam wished her good luck. Emma thanked them and climbed out of the car.

oOo

When she got closer to the old warehouse, she knew for certain that there was a party going on. She could now hear strange, ethereal music coming from the building. Emma approached, on the lookout for Jason Bowman. A man matching the photograph Sam and Mickey had shown her leaned against the wall of the warehouse, smoking a cigarette.

"Mr. Bowman?" Emma asked as she approached, trying to sound confident and at the same time not revealing that she knew for certain that he was the man she was scheduled to meet.

"Yes?" He nervously fumbled with his cigarette.

"I believe we have an appointment."

"Of course," Jason replied, but he sounded uncertain and apprehensive. Despite the darkness, she could feel his eyes watching her every move. She had yet to win his trust.

"You do not believe that it's really me, do you?" Emma ventured, hoping this was the right thing to say, but forcing on confidence. The real Moira Bliss wouldn't be worried and that was who she had to be tonight, she told herself.

"I must say you are not what I expected, Miss Bliss."

"What did you expect?" Jason didn't reply at first, then he shyly admitted, "To be honest, I was expecting someone older, less...attractive."

"Are you disappointed?"

"No, of course not. I...to be honest, I don't know what to say," Jason said awkwardly. He reminded her of a teenager on his first date, even though he had to be pushing forty. But at least his doubts about her identity seemed to have eased.

"A journalist struggling for words?" she teased, not wanting to give in to his insecurity. The point was to get him to talk, she reminded herself.

"I see you did your homework," Jason remarked. There was a moment of tense silence between them. Emma was trying to gauge the situation. She wasn't entirely certain how to read Jason's silence. Was he really that insecure, or did he still have doubts?

"What was it that you wanted to show me?" Emma finally asked. They were getting nowhere standing out here. Something was going down in the warehouse and she wanted to know what.

Jason turned and knocked firmly against the thick steel door. It slid back a few inches and a man's face peered through the crack. Even in the darkness, his face appeared too pale, almost like he was wearing white make-up.

"Password?" the man asked. Emma wasn't sure whether to be surprised or amused.

"Racheengel," Jason replied seriously and they were allowed to enter. As Emma had expected there was indeed a party going on inside the warehouse, but it wasn't like any party she had ever seen. The room was decorated entirely in black and white with long curtains hiding the barren walls of the warehouse. Statues of angels frozen in various positions were scattered across the room, mimicking the design of the books' covers. The dim sodium lights made everything appear drained of colour. There was a dance floor the further inwards where people were dancing slowly to the instrumental music. More people were standing around, some sipping drinks. Most of the party goers wore the common outfits of young people out on the town, but a good few were in costume, dressed in long black robes, their faces painted white.

"It's..." Emma was truly lost for words.

"Sush!" Jason put a finger to his lips and pulled her into a corner behind one of the statues. "It's the world of Zariel. A world without colour or words. A world of music," Jason explained. Emma recalled the books - Zariel, the fallen angel, condemned to be mute and colour blind as punishment, finding solace in music and solving crimes. She had thought his world to be quite depressing, but seeing it come to life here, it appeared almost peaceful.

"It is amazing," Emma managed to whisper, not certain how she was supposed to react. This was not at all what she had expected. "Why are you showing me this?"

"I thought...I thought you should know how much your work has touched and inspired people."

"I admit it is flattering," Emma whispered. She couldn't help but be fascinated by what was going on around her.

"Who organises these things?" Emma forced herself to get back on track.

"We can talk about this later. First I'll get us something to drink." Jason whispered and before Emma could reply, he was walking away,

"I'll try to follow him and have a look around while I'm at it." Emma whispered for Sam and Mickey's benefit as she followed Jason. At first she thought he was really headed for the bar at the other side of the dance floor, but when she got there, momentarily having lost sight of him as she moved across the dance floor, Jason was nowhere to be seen.

"I've lost him," she quietly informed Sam and Mickey. She stood still for a moment, when she caught a glimpse of something happening at the makeshift bar. The barista, a woman in costume, was pouring a drink like she would expect, but when she handed the glass to a waiting customer, Emma could see that she was passing something in the palm of her hand, along with the glass. Trying not to draw attention to herself, Emma moved in closer, trying to get a better look at what the barista had just handed the young woman at the bar. The barista was looking at her, so Emma quickly sat down at the far end of the bar just in time to see the woman with the drink drop a tablet into her own drink, taking a sip a few moments later. Emma watched the other customer at the bar. The orders seemed to be made via hand signals - another element that was familiar from the books. Emma considered staying at the bar for a while longer to observe what was going on, but she didn't want to catch the attention of the barista, fearing that she would reveal herself as an 'outsider', as she was unfamiliar with the hand signals. Emma moved back towards the dance floor, when she spotted Jason again, emerging from behind a black curtain near the bar. Emma quickly stepped back, trying not to be seen. Jason headed for the bar. Emma took the opportunity to slip through the opening in the curtain. Behind the decorations and black curtains, the place looked like the abandoned warehouse it was.

"Mickey, Sam. There is definitely something dodgy going on. I saw a girl at the bar taking drugs, looked like ecstasy or something like it. I'm having a look around now."

oOo

"Damn, she should know better than that." Sam slammed her fist down on the dashboard when she heard Emma telling them about seeing drugs being taken at the party. "She was supposed to get Bowman to talk, not play detective."

The increasingly muted sounds of the music were filtering over the radio. Suddenly, they heard a sharp cry, followed by several heavy thuds.

"Damn, I knew this was a bad idea!" Sam pushed open the car door.

"What are you doing?" Mickey asked, getting out of the car as well. "You can't be thinking of going in there yourself. We don't know how many people are at this party. At least call in Reg and Tony!"

Sam stopped and turned to face him. "I know. But if we wait for back-up..." she fell silent when they heard a groan coming over the radio, followed by a shuffling sound, Then, finally, they heard Emma's voice. "Mickey, Sam. Someone just pushed me down a flight of stairs, but I'm okay, I think. I didn't see them. They must have gotten me from behind." Emma's voice was shaky over the radio.

oOo

Emma ran a hand over the back of her head where a goose-egg was starting to form. Her right forearm and wrist were sore, but she doubted that they were broken. It seemed that she had been lucky and had managed to escape with nothing more serious than bruises,

"Whoever it was, I'm pretty sure that they are gone by now," Emma said, hoping that she was right. "There is a door down here." She said, walking towards it in the near darkness

"I'll check it out and if nothing gives, I'll go back to the party and try to find Jason again." Emma reached the doors. For a moment, she rested her hand on the cool metal, before trying the handle. She felt uncomfortable sneaking around in the dark in a disused warehouse. She was pleasantly surprised to find that the door wasn't locked. Two steps later, she stood outside again, at the bottom of a stairwell leading up the street behind the warehouse. The fresh night air was a welcome relief after the stuffy heat of the party.

"I'm outside now." Emma walked up the stairs, only now noticing how sore she really was. By morning she was bound to be covered in bruises. "It must be on the other side of the warehouse. I have no idea where Jason is. He's probably still inside, but I don't fancy going back in there." Emma looked along the darkened streets, trying to tell in which direction Sam and Mickey were parked.

oOo

A&E was packed that night. Something about a spate of food poisoning resulting from a party, she'd overheard one of the nurses saying. At any rate, it was past 2 a.m. by the time her turn came. Sam and Mickey had insisted that she get herself seen to, just in case that her wrist was broken after all, but the doctor only told her what she already knew.

"Well, the x-ray hasn't revealed any fractures. You got lucky. Your wrist is merely sprained. Put some ice on it when you get home. That should reduce the swelling. Keep the bandage on for the next two days," the doctor told her while bandaging her wrist.

She couldn't wait to get out of the hospital. Though physically tired from the long day, her mind was keeping its own hours. The long wait had given her time to think, something she had done far too little as she now realized. The whole idea of going undercover had been pretty much a spur of the moment thing. She hadn't had a chance to think things through, until now. She still wanted to prove Will's innocence, that hadn't changed, but she had doubts whether she really was the best person for the job. But there was no turning back now and tomorrow she would have to face the public as Moira Bliss, whether she wanted to or not. It was too late to back out now.

"Miss Keane?"

"Huh? Sorry what did you just say? I'm afraid I was lost in thought," Emma looked up, surprised to find the doctor still there.

"I was asking if you were sure that you didn't hit your head when you fell."

"Uhm, no, I don't think so. I mean, I was sort of stunned for a moment, but I think it was just the shock."

"But you didn't lose consciousness?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't even have a headache," she replied truthfully.

"Good. I don't think you are concussed in that case. You are free to go."

Emma nodded gratefully. "Thank you." She slipped back into her jacket and slid off the exam table. She walked out of the hospital, deep in thought.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

oOo

Will was drifting. Awareness came and went, like the ebb and flow of the tide, the brief moments of lucidity quickly disappearing into obscurity, leaving only traces of memory behind. When Will's senses sharpened once again, he felt pain first, with every breath, his chest ached. Then his hearing returned. The jumble of noises was immediately familiar, even though he didn't know from where at first. Only when he opened his eyes and his vision cleared a few moments later, everything came together and he knew he was in hospital.

He looked around. The ward seemed fairly quiet and the lights were low. Maybe it was night. He didn't know what time it was, nor even knew for sure what day it was, He took a closer look around. On the nightstand at the side of his bed were flowers, as well as several colourful cards. He reached out to have a closer look when the pain that shot through his chest reminded him of the more pressing issues. He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog from his mind and stay awake. His chest hurt with every breath and he really needed to know what had happened. Will ran a hand over his sore chest, trying to gauge the degree of injury. There didn't seem to be any holes in him, but a couple of broken ribs and probably spectacular bruising for sure. What the hell had happened to him? This was more than what you'd get from just one kick into the ribs. To do this, someone had to have beaten him up pretty good. A nasty and disturbing suspicion formed in the back of his mind. He had seen that type of injury--the bruising, the broken ribs - before on victims who had received CPR. The thought was disturbing, even more so since he couldn't recall what had happened to put him in hospital in the first place. The last thing he remembered, it had been just an ordinary day on the job. He was a bit fuzzy on the details, but he recalled clearly that they had arrested two youths for shoplifting at a mall around 11 a.m. that morning. He'd been with Sally that day, that much he recalled. Beyond that, it was all a big, dark blur. Tired from thinking, Will let his head sink back into the pillow. It was tempting to simply let himself drift off to sleep again, but he needed answers. Pushing himself up once again, he ground his teeth against the pain in his chest and pressed the call button.

oOo

"You were truly lucky, Mr. Fletcher," the doctor declared, studying the contents of her clipboard. "Your kidney function levels are nearly back to normal and your neurological responses are also within normal limits. It seems that you managed to escape any permanent damage."

Not that this wasn't good news to Will, but he still didn't know what had actually happened. Once he'd called for the nurse, it had all gone very quickly. She had taken one look at him and before he'd had the chance to ask any questions, she told him she was going to get a doctor, and she was gone. The white-haired physician that had shown up a few minutes later had introduced herself as Dr. Pearson and had proceeded to put him through a battery of neurological tests, which apparently he had passed with flying colours. Now all he wanted was to go back to sleep, but he needed answers first.

"What about my memory? I still can't remember what actually happened," Will asked Dr. Pearson, trying to hide his anxiety.

"Ah. I wouldn't worry if I were you. Amnesia is a common side effect and given the amount of drugs in your system, I'm not really surprised that you can't remember."

Drug? He hadn't taken any drugs. He wouldn't. He had seen their detrimental effects far too often to even consider taking any himself.

"What drug?" he managed to ask.

"Right. You don't remember. You were admitted after taking an overdose of a designer drug called Mercury.

Mercury. The name rang a bell. Will was sure he'd heard it before, but he couldn't recall where.

"When can I go home?" he asked instead.

"Not so fast, Mr. Fletcher. There are still some things we need to check out before we can send you home. For the moment, we've put you on an anti-seizure medication, seeing as the overdose caused you to have several seizures. I doubt this will be anything permanent, but we'll still need to run another EEG to check for recent seizure activity."

Will was stunned. It looked like he'd gotten himself into quite a mess and the worst was that he couldn't recall one good reason why he could have taken drugs.

But one thing he did know for certain was that if those seizures, which he fortunately couldn't recall having either, turned out to be something permanent after all, he could kiss his career good-bye.

oOo

"What did the doctors say?" Mickey asked her, leaning in the doorframe of the briefing room as he spotted Emma hurrying up the corridor.

"Good morning to you, too," Emma said laughingly as she caught up with him. "I'm fine. It's just a sprain."

"Good to hear that," Sam said, also just now arriving at the briefing room.

The three entered the briefing room where most of the people involved with the investigation were already gathered, waiting for the briefing to start. Even the DCI was already there.

Emma and Mickey quickly took a seat while Sam handed Emma a stack of folders and asked her to pass them around before joining the DCI at the front of the room.

"Everyone here?" Jack asked. "Good, then let's get going. First of all, good news. The hospital just called. PC Fletcher has regained consciousness and is fit to be interviewed. Sam, I want you and Mickey to head over there first thing."

Emma's heart leapt at the news. If the doctors thought Will was fit to be interviewed, that meant that Will was at least on the mend and out of immediate danger. Her day suddenly looked a lot brighter, despite her dreading the upcoming press conference. She had spent most of what had been left of the night after she'd returned from hospital thinking about what she was going to say. This wasn't just a matter of one of two people buying into her cover story like it had been until now. This was a whole different level. There would be journalists there who dug into other people's lives for a living. If one of them found out the truth about who she really was, she didn't even want to think about the consequences.

"Also, the Australian police have gotten back to me. They think they have managed to track down Moira Bliss for us, the real Moira Bliss. The woman, who has been using the Internet cafe to send those emails to Rebecca Williams is one Susan Carpenter, fifty-six years old, unmarried, no children. She's a British national, but has been living in Australia for the past fifteen years. No criminal history, either here or in Australia."

"I guess we can cross her off our list then," Mickey said, sounding just a bit disappointed.

"Not so fast." Jack put up the picture of a middle-aged woman on the whiteboard next to the photograph of the biographer and Will's picture - the pictures of their current suspects.

"The Australian police have also taken a look at Susan Carpenter's financials, and her credit card statements show that a week ago she booked a ticket for a flight to London. Her flight was due to arrive in Heathrow three days ago. Since then, there have been several charges in and around London. Mostly shops, nothing out of the ordinary, but also charges from the Metropole Hotel. It seems like she has been staying there for the past two nights."

"That would put her in London at the time of the murder."

"Exactly," Jack said. "Sergeant Stone, I want you to take one of your team and pay her a visit. Find out what she is doing in England and when the last time was that she'd had contact with her agent. I take it the CCTV hasn't given anything useful yet?"

"Not really. Since the hotel itself doesn't have any CCTV, we've only got the tapes from some of the businesses in the same street. But you can't see the hotel entrance or the parking lot directly on any of them," Stone summarized the previous day's work.

"I know it's frustrating, but keep at it. I'll talk to Inspector Gold and see if we can get some more people to help you out. You know who to look out for." Jack indicated the photographs on the white board. "As you all know, at 3 p.m. this afternoon, Orgon Publishing is going to hold a press conference accompanying the launch of Moira's Bliss' latest book tomorrow. They except Emma to be there and for the moment, we're planning to go ahead with it. But obviously, we can't do that unless Susan Carpenter agrees to let Emma play her part at the press conference. Emma, I want you to accompany Sally and the sergeant to the hotel. Convince her that it is in everyone's best interest for her not to appear at the press conference herself. Of course, if she insists, we can't force her. So be persuasive." Jack smiled briefly before turning serious again. "If she does agree, she is probably the best person to prepare you for the kinds of questions you'll most likely be asked."

"What if she doesn't agree and insists on making the appearance herself?" Mickey asked.

"Good question. I don't know," Jack admitted. "But in that case, let me know immediately. That's all. Off you go; we've got a busy day ahead of ourselves."

oOo

Despite his anxieties and the many unanswered questions on his mind, Will had fallen asleep again almost as soon as Dr. Pearson had left, exhausted from the mere effort of the conversation.

He was woken again by an unpleasant screeching noise. Searching for its source, he saw one of the people he had least expected to turn up sitting in a chair at his bedside.

"Sarge?" Will asked, not sure whether he could believe his eyes. Stone folded and put away the newspaper he'd been reading.

"PC Fletcher. Good to see you awake." The seriousness on his face betrayed the levity of his tone. Something was wrong and Will hated not knowing what it was. Before he could ask, Stone continued. "We need to have a word."

"Sure," Will replied, not sure at all if he was up to it.

"You are going to be asked the same questions by the DPS and probably by CID as well, but I'm asking you now. I need to know what happened at the Blue Parrot bar on Monday."

Monday. Will had to think hard. He had no idea what day it was today, but somehow Monday seemed weeks ago.

"I was there with Sally," Will began, his memory slowly returning to him and with it the realization why Stone was asking about it. "We were called by the owner. There was a customer who was refusing to pay his bill. While we were dealing with the matter, I spotted two men at the bar doing a drug deal right in front of us. Sally and I went to confront them. One of them ran away, Sally chased after him. I stayed to question the other guy."

Will paused, unsure how to continue. It wasn't that he didn't remember. He remembered it all too well and was wondering how much Stone knew already if he was asking about it. He had no idea how it could have gotten out. Not even Sally had known what had really happened. He never should have kept it quiet, Will realized now. He'd landed himself in a right mess that way.

"What happened next?" Stone prompted him impatiently.

"I questioned him, but he refused to give up anything. The only thing I got out of him that he was a Dutch citizen and he was claiming that he was here strictly on business. The next thing I know, I'm in the back room, with the guy holding a knife to my throat." Will's voice wavered as he related what had happened that day.

"He...he forced me to drink some stuff. It must have been drugged, because after that, I don't really remember anything." His hand instinctively found the shallow cut at the side of his neck. It was the one thing that reminded him that it had all been real and hadn't just been a crazy nightmare.

"I must have gotten home somehow because the next morning, I was back in my flat," Will finished his story. It now sounded preposterous to his own ears, but Stone hadn't said anything so far.

"Have you told anyone about this?" Stone finally asked.

Will simply shook his head. He wasn't quite certain why, but he really didn't want to become the laughing stock of the entire station. He had just wanted to forget all about the incident.

"You need to tell the DPS exactly what you have just told me. Did you at least go to hospital or see the FME the next day?"

"No, I didn't. I just called in sick. I know it was stupid," he admitted.

"No going back now. The DPS seems to think that you let this guy buy his way out of an arrest, so you need to tell them the truth."

Will nodded. He knew it was the only way out, but he had his doubts if they would believe him. Stone appeared to believe his story, but he wasn't an easy man to read. Will never knew where he was with Sergeant Stone.

"You should get some rest," Stone suddenly said, sounding unusually compassionate. He got up and turned to leave. "Remember, tell them the truth," he said again and left.

Will sighed and allowed his eyes to close. He was tired, physically as well as emotionally. He had just wanted to forget everything that had happened that day, had wanted to forget how scared he'd been. Now it was all being dragged back to the surface, if he wanted it to or not. And that probably wasn't even the biggest of his worries, he realized.

oOo

The hotel where Susan Carpenter was staying was considerably more up-market than the one where Will and Rebecca had been staying, Emma remarked as Sally and she were getting off the elevator on the fourth floor.

The young man at the front desk had confirmed that there was indeed a Susan Carpenter staying at the hotel and had directed them up to room 446.

It took them a few minutes to find their way from the elevator, but soon they stood in front of the door to room 446.

Sally knocked at the door. No response from inside. She knocked again. Again, there was no response. She knocked for the third time.

"Ms. Carpenter! Police, please open the door," she called out. Finally, they could hear movement on the other side of the door. A moment later, it was opened a few inches wide and a middle-aged woman peered at them through the crack.

"Ms. Carpenter?" Sally asked.

"Can I see your ID please?"

Sally and Emma showed her their warrant cards. Apparently satisfied, she opened the door and allowed them inside.

"Are you Ms. Susan Carpenter?" Sally asked again. "Yes, that's me," she confirmed. "Please, come in."

The two police officers stepped into the room. Despite what the DCI had said during the briefing, Sergeant Stone hadn't come along with them, telling them only that he had something else to take care of. For a hotel room, it was actually quite nice. Certainly not cheap, Emma thought.

"I assume you are here about the death of my agent, Rebecca Williams?" she asked, motioning for them to take a seat at the table. There were only two chairs, so Emma remained standing.

"Yes, that is why we're here," Sally confirmed.

"I thought so. I read about her death in the morning paper." She indicated to a copy of this morning's Canley Gazette, which was lying on the table. "I have to admit that I became very concerned when they mentioned that the manuscript hasn't been found yet. Is that true?"

"Yes, unfortunately, we haven't found it yet," Sally confirmed. "But we are still looking for it. Did you know that Rebecca Williams was pretending to be you?" Emma watched the woman's face carefully when she answered. "Of course I did. I asked her to. The publishing house wanted me to appear at the press conference. I really didn't want to, so I asked Rebecca to play my part."

It sounded plausible, but Emma had her doubts.

"Why did you come to England then, if you didn't want to appear publicly?" Sally asked.

"Research. My books are set in England. I used to live here, but a lot had changed in the past fifteen years. I also handed over my manuscript to Rebecca personally, since I was already here."

"When was that?" Emma asked.

"The day before yesterday, we met in Canley Park. I gave her the manuscript. She promised she would take it straight to the safe at the publishing house. I don't understand how it could have gotten lost." Susan shook her head in disbelief. "You must understand. She had the only copy that exists of this book. Its loss would be a tragedy."

"So, you met her the day she died?"

"I suppose so."

"At what time did you meet?"

"4.30 p.m. We spent maybe an hour together."

"What did you talk about?"

"I don't see how that would concern you."

"This is a murder inquiry, Ms. Carpenter. You were one of the last people to meet Rebecca Williams. Now, what did you talk about?"

"Mainly we talked about the press conference," Susan replied.

"Speaking of the press conference, we believe it would be safer for you if you didn't make an appearance."

Emma felt herself tense as Sally asked the question. Much of their investigation depended on the author agreeing to their plan. Yet at the same time, Emma didn't relish the idea of having to appear in public as Moira Bliss.

"You don't think the person who killed Rebecca was really trying to kill me?" Susan sounded as shocked as Emma would have expected.

"At this point, we can't rule out the possibility that you were the intended target. This is why we propose that an undercover police officer plays your part at the press conference. Only if you agree, of course."

"If you think that is warranted, I don't mind. I would like to speak with the officer though, if that is possible."

"That will be no problem. PC Keane here was the officer we had in mind." Sally indicated Emma.

"You're a bit young my dear, but I guess we can make this work." Despite her apprehension, Emma smiled at her brightly. She hoped that by now Will had told Sam and Mickey his part of the story, but they still needed to make this work to find the real killer.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

oOo

Sam hadn't believed that Will was really guilty of murder, but still, she was relieved after talking to Dr. Pearson, the physician treating Will. According to her, it was very unlikely that Will would have been physically able to commit the crime, given the lethal levels of Mercury in his bloodstream. She couldn't tell them for certain when he'd taken the drug, but she thought it couldn't have been more than a few hours before he was found. An overdose this massive would have rendered him unconscious within twenty to thirty minutes and after that, even if he'd regained consciousness briefly, he would have been unable to do harm to anyone.

After thanking Dr. Pearson, Mickey and Sam made their way to the ward to which Will had been moved from the ICU.

Will looked awful. His face was pale and in stark contrast to the dark circles underneath his eyes.

"Will?" Sam asked quietly, just in case he was asleep.

Will turned his head to face her and Mickey. He tried to smile but he only looked more tired.

"WE know this comes very early, but is it okay if we ask you some questions?" Mickey asked.

Will nodded. "Guess I'll have to be. But can you at least tell me what is going on. No one's telling me anything."

Sam felt sorry for him. She couldn't imagine what it had to be like for him. "We believe you were drugged with a new designer drug called Mercury."

Will breathed a sigh of relief. "The doctor's told me that I've taken an overdose. But I would be crazy to even try this stuff."

"We understand. That's why we believe that you were drugged against your will."

"That's good," Will replied. "Well, not good, but it certainly explains some things. Do you know who did this yet?"

Sam shook her head, regretting that she didn't have an answer for the young officer. "What we need to know from you is anything you recall about what happened that day."

"I'm not sure I remember anything at all,l" Will said, shaking his head. "I remember only bits and pieces. I remember working with Sally in the morning. Just routine stuff."

"So you don't remember meeting Rebecca Williams that night?"

"No, not at all. Did something happen to her?" Will asked shakily.

"I'm sorry, but she was murdered two days ago. She was found dead at the same hotel room where Emma found you."

"And you think that I could have done it?"

"No, no," Sam reassured him. "Your doctor says that is pretty much impossible. The amount of the drug in your bloodstream would have made it impossible for you to kill anyone."

Will appeared immensely relieved.

"How did she die?" he eventually asked, his voice rough.

"Are you sure you want to do this now?" Mickey asked gently.

Will nodded. "Her throat was cut," Mickey told him. Will closed his eyes for a moment.

"Are you all right?" Mickey asked.

"Not really," Will replied. "But it's okay. Ask what you need to ask."

"Can you tell us a bit about Rebecca? We're still trying to build a picture of her and you might be able to help.

"I don't really know that much about her. I only remember meeting her once. Last weekend at the pub, after my shift. We hit it right off. We left the pub maybe an hour later and ended up at the Octane night club. We stayed for maybe another hour, and then she took a cab home." Will paused for a moment to think. "She told me she worked as a literary agent for a local publishing house."

"She didn't tell you about being an author?" Sam asked, wondering just when Rebecca Williams had started to pretend that she was Moira Bliss and who she had shared her 'secret' with.

"No, I didn't know that." Will sounded genuinely surprised. "As I said, I can remember meeting her only that one time."

"We believe that you met her again sometime on Wednesday evening."

"Have you checked the call log? I was with Sally that day," Will told them again. He appeared to have trouble keeping his eyes open.

"We will." Sam promised. "We better leave you know. Dr. Pearson said not to tire you out."

For a moment, it seemed to her that Will was going to say something else, but he closed his eyes and remained silent. Quietly, Mickey and Sam left.

oOo

"Now it is my pleasure to introduce our guest of honour - Moira Bliss," Valery Orgon announced to the group of journalist gathered for the press conference. Nervously Emma stepped forward and took a seat at the center of the table. She was all too aware that all eyes were on her.

"It is my pleasure to be here today," she began recalling what Susan Carpenter had told her. They had talked for close to two hours and although she still felt ill at ease in her role as Moira Bliss, the encounter with the real woman had given her confidence.

"Please, your questions for Miss Bliss," Valery instructed the journalists.

"Miss Bliss, why have you decided to appear publicly now?"

"Seeing how much my books have influenced so many people, I wanted to give something back to my many readers."

"How does someone so young write something this dark?" another journalist asked.

"We all have a dark side, don't we? Everyone deals with their's differently I happen to write," she answered casually, trying to put as much confidence in her voice as she could.

"How do we know you are the real Moira Bliss?" One journalist repeated the question that the biographer had already asked her the previous day.

"Maybe I am, Maybe I'm not. You'll just have to take my word for it. And that of my esteemed publishers of course," Emma answered with a smile.

"I can assure you, this is the real Miss Bliss," Valery added, but for a moment, Emma thought she could detect doubts on her face as well.

"Are you planning to continue the Zariel series?"

"Honestly, I don't know yet. There will be one more book in the series, that's for certain, but beyond that I haven't decided yet," Emma repeated what Susan Carpenter had told her.

"Is it true that the manuscript of that book was stolen?"

"I'm afraid I cannot comment on that," Emma replied, caught of guard for a short moment. She hadn't been prepared for that question. She had had no idea that those details had gotten out to the press already, but it explained how Susan Carpenter had known about the theft.

"What do you have to say about the murder of your agent Rebecca Williams?"

"Has her death influenced your decision to go public at all?"

"I'm afraid this will be all for now," Valery declared, calling for an end to the press conference. "Thank you all very much for coming. I hope we could satisfy some of your curiosity today," she concluded. "And thanks again to Miss Bliss for agreeing to appear here today." Valery clapped her hands.

Slowly the room cleared until only the publishers, Emma, Mickey and Sam were left. Ostensibly, the detectives were there for her protection, at least that was what Emma had told the publishers, but in reality, the DCI had though it would be a good idea to see who turned up at the press conference and for Emma to have back-up just in case things turned ugly.

Valery came walking over to Emma and shook her hand. "Miss Bliss, you did a great job. We really are very proud to have you at Orgon Publishing."

"Thank you, Mrs Orgon. It is good to be here," Emma thanked her. "If you would excuse me now, the detectives wanted another word with me." Emma said and left Valery Orgon and her husband and waked over to where Sam and Mickey sat in the back of the room. They got up from their chairs as she approached,

"Nice job, Miss Bliss," Mickey said, grinning at her. "I agree," Sam added. "Let's go back to the car."

Emma waved good-bye to the publishers and followed the two detectives outside. Once they were clear of the conference room, Emma was able to breathe easier and some of tension dropped from her body. She was relieved that it was finally over. She didn't feel comfortable in Moira's skins by a long shot.

"Damn," Sam muttered, cell phone in hand. "No reception. Maybe outside."

"You go ahead," Mickey told her. "I just remembered something I wanted to ask the publishers about..

Emma was just about to ask him what he meant when she spotted a man walking towards them. She probably wouldn't have noticed him at all, hadn't it been for his clothing. He was wearing a dark cloak like the people in costume at the party. When he came closer she could see that he was wearing light grey contact lenses which made his eyes appear milky and colourless. Like Zariel. His eyes were fixed on Emma in a cold stare. Emma wanted to alert her colleagues, but Sam had disappeared down the hallway and out of sight and Mickey had already turned back towards the conference room.

The black robed man was now just a few feet from her. He pushed back his cloak, revealing what looked like a machete. The sight of the weapon pulled Emma from her daze.

"Mickey!" Emma called out. Mickey turned around, but it was too late. The man was already charging at Emma. Before she had a chance to duck, Mickey had already pushed her out of the way. Emma tumbled to the floor. There was a scream and Mickey landed on top of her.

Her attacker however wasn't deterred and tried to grab her by the wrist. Emma scrambled to her feet, instinctively moving backwards, but found herself backed against the window. Time seemed to move at a snail's pace as the man with the machete moved towards her. Thoughts were going a mile a minute inside her mind.

As she searched for a possible means of escape, Emma's eyes fell on Mickey. He was sitting up, one arm curled to his chest, but he didn't seem to be aware of what was going on around him yet. Emma considered screaming to try and alert someone, but she didn't want to do anything to provoke the crazed man. When the blade touched her cheek, she involuntarily closed her eyes and froze, not daring to even breathe.

"Zariel must not die. You understand?"

She heard the words, but her mind refused to process them.

There was the slightest increase in pressure on the blade. It broke her skin, but she didn't flinch.

"Do you understand?" he asked again.

"Yes, I do." Emma whispered, her eyes still closed, praying that it was the right thing to say and that he wasn't just going to kill her anyways, no matter what she said or did.

Suddenly, it could have been moments or minutes later, the sensation of the blade against her skin vanished. Emma opened her eyes, still in a daze. She looked around. Both Mickey and the man were gone.

"Miss Bliss, are you all right?" Valery Bliss had stepped out of the conference room was hurrying towards her. She stopped in front of Emma. "Are you injured? What happened?"

"It's…it's all right," Emma managed. All she wanted was for Valery to leave her be, she couldn't pretend to be Moira Bliss, not now.

"You don't look all right!" Valery exclaimed. "What happened? Is that blood?!"

Emma ran her fingers over her cheek, the wound stinging painfully under her touch. The pain jolted her mind back into action. She needed to pull together.

"Mrs Orgon," she said firmly. "I'll call you later. There is something I need to discuss with the detectives." Emma turned away from her, not sure where she was going. She needed to find Mickey and Sam, tell them what happened. Where was Mickey, anyways, and was he all right? Had he given chase?

Valery called after her, but Emma ignored her and walked towards the landing. She pulled out her cell phone as soon as she was sure that she was out of hearing range. Then she remembered – no reception inside the building. She didn't have anymore luck on the landing. Sam had probably gone outside, back to the car. Emma was pondering the choice between elevator and stairs for a moment, when a soft 'ding' announced a stop of the elevator on the floor. The metal doors slid open and Mickey staggered out. He was clutching his left arm tightly, blood seeping though his fingers.

"Emma! Thank God, you're all right."

"Mickey, you're bleeding!" Emma felt like she was stating the obvious, but Mickey didn't appear to notice that he was leaving a trail of blood drops in his wake.

Mickey looked down at his arm.

"It's not that bad," he tried to reassure her, but she could hear pain and a hint of fear in his voice.

"Nonsense! Give me your tie!" Emma was suddenly glad that Mickey had put on a suit for the occasion. Mickey fumbled for a moment, but handed it to her.

This she could handle. She was trained to deal with situations like this, she told herself. Mickey didn't protest when Emma looped the tie above his elbow and tied it with a firm knot.

oOo

Mickey was putting on a brave front but Emma could tell that he was in pain. His face was looking very pale and he was walking slightly unsteady as they were approaching the car, leading her to wonder whether she shouldn't have just ignored him and called an ambulance anyways, despite him insisting that it would be just as quick if they dropped him off at A&E.

As they entered the parking lot, she spotted Sam next to their car, talking animatedly on the phone.

oOo

Sam was beyond pissed. Since someone had decided to design a conference centre in which there apparently was no cell phone reception, she had been forced to stand out in the rain while she had phoned to DCI, only to tell him that nothing much had happened at the press conference. Then she had walked back to the parking lot and found that someone had smashed all six windows of the car. It looked like the work of one of Moira's crazy fans, as despite the rather rude gesture, flowers, a card and a parcel wrapped in gift paper had been put inside the car. Not exactly the subtle approach, Sam thought. Having no other choice and unable to get out of the rain yet, she phoned the station once again.

She had just snapped her phone shut and wiped a wet strand of hair out of her face, when she spotted Emma and Mickey on the other end of the car park. Something was wrong, she knew it immediately. They were walking very slowly, despite the pouring rain and Emma seemed to be almost supporting Mickey. Trusting her instincts, San rushed to meet them.

"What happened?"

"We were attacked, some guy stabbed Mickey!" Emma exclaimed.

"Mickey?!" Sam's eyes searched his body for sign of injury.

"He just got me in the arm." Mickey explained. "It's not that bad."

"We need to get you to a hospital," Sam decided.

"No argument from me there," Emma agreed.

"I'll call an ambulance," Sam said, ready to make a third phone call.

She was going through the motions, giving the CAD officer on the other end their location, when she watched Emma bend down into the car. Before she could stop her, Emma had already picked up the parcel. Sam was about to protest that she really should know better, when Emma started running towards the other end of the parking lot, that which bordered on the river. She watched Emma hurl the parcel out into the water. It had no sooner sunk with a splash, when there was a muted bang and a fountain of water shot up, showering them and the surrounding cars with thick drops. None of the three spoke for a moment.

"How did you know?" It was Mickey who broke the stunned silence.

"I didn't," Emma replied, out of breath. "There was this part in the book, where someone tries to murder Zariel by leaving a bomb in his car. Just like this one. It was really just a hunch," Emma said and shrugged.

"Good one," Sam told her, feeling slightly giddy with relief and the knowledge how close they had come to blowing up along with the car. Mickey leaned on the car.

"I think I'm going to pass out," he said weakly before his knees buckled under him and he slumped against the blue Vauxhall.

"Call an ambulance!" Sam yelled to Emma while she tended to Mickey. His breathing was fast and shallow, his skin was stark white and clammy. Blood was seeping from the wound.

"Stubborn bastard," Sam muttered she tried to staunch the blood flow with her jacket. "Hold on, Mickey," she whispered to him.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

oOo

About twenty minutes after the ambulance had arrived and Sam had left to accompany Mickey to St. Hugh's Hospital, another car pulled up in front of the conference centre. The entire building had been evacuated and was currently being searched by the bomb squad, just in case more explosives had been planted.

The DCI got out of the car and Emma headed to greet him, but Jack wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. "What the hell happened?" he thundered, before she even got out a greeting.

Emma swallowed hard before launching into a brief account of the incidents of the past hour. Once again she found it difficult to recount the action-filled events.

The DCI had merely nodded several times while she spoke, and even after she had finished, he remained silent for a moment.

"You did a good job, PC Keane. You saved three lives today."

"What about DC Webb? Is he going to be all right?" Emma asked anxiously. The ambulance had arrived fairly soon after Mickey had collapsed in the parking lot, but he had still lost a lot of blood.

"Still critical. They are trying to make up for the blood he lost, but he'd already gone into shock." Jack's face was creased with worry. Emma got the impression that he would rather be at the hospital right now instead of standing out here in the rain.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Emma didn't know what he meant at first. "You might need stitches for that cut," he added and only then she understood what he was talking about.

Emma gingerly touched the wound. It still stung, but she didn't think it was deep enough to require immediate treatment. She shook her head in reply to the DCI's question.

" Roger Valentine walked up to them. "Sir, the bomb squad finished their sweep of the building, and it's all clear."

"Good, get everyone inside, but make sure no one leaves. I want them all questioned,; maybe a few of them saw something."

"I doubt any of them are going to be much help. The way he was disguised...I mean I was within inches of his face and I still couldn't tell as much as his eye colour." Emma's voice shook as she recalled the frightening experience.

"So there is no chance that you've seen him before. At the warehouse party maybe?"

Emma shook her head again. "He might have been there, but with the costumes, they kind of all looked the same. I'm sorry," she apologized, now angry at herself that she hadn't done her job properly and paid more attention.

"All right, you should take a break. Go home and get yourself cleaned up. Once you get back, I want you to see the FME first thing. PC Valentine will be coming with you, just in case we haven't seen the last of this maniac."

"Yes, sir." Feeling cold and tired, Emma looked forward to a hot shower and dry clothes. The DCI's words had surprised her. She hadn't even considered the implications to her personal safety. She had been so caught up in everything that happened that she hadn't had a chance to think properly yet.

oOo

A hot shower and a change of clothes later, Emma returned to the station with Roger. Even though she was dry and no longer cold, she still felt worn after the events of the afternoon, as she clicked her way through screen after screen of possible suspects. She doubted she would recognize the man even if his picture was in there. The contact lenses and the pale make-up had effectively disguised his face. All she had to go on was height, build and a rough estimate of his age. Emma leaned back for a moment and sighed. Tension had settled between her shoulders and her eyes were starting to itch from the strain of staring at a screen for what seemed like hours.

"How is it going?" Emma turned around and saw Jo standing behind her.

"Not so great. Even if he's in there, I doubt I would recognize him."

"Could this be him?" Jo held up a grainy black and white print-out. It looked like an image taken from CCTV footage. Emma recognized one of the storefronts in the image from the street where the Gardena Hotel was.

Emma squinted, trying to make out the figure that appeared to loiter in front of the store's window.

"It could be him, but I wouldn't swear to it in court," she finally said.

"You don't need to. We've got a name. Got it from the prints on the machete he dropped. His name is John Hooper, twenty-two years old. He's in the system for assault. Stabbed a man in a bar fight eighteen months ago." She pointed to the figure in the print-out. "This is definitely him. He was loitering next to the hotel the night of the murder." Emma had another look at the image and the time-code stamped in the corner. It showed the time as 9.34 p.m. That was before Will and Rebecca had arrived at the hotel.

"He knew they were coming. He must have."

"Exactly," Jo confirmed. "He stays there for about twenty minutes then he walks off camera."

"So we don't know where he was at the time of the murder."

"Unfortunately not. I think if he was at the hotel, someone must have seen him there."

"I wouldn't count on that." Emma had seen the hotel for herself. Then she remembered something. "Sergeant Stone said something about the hotel having been under surveillance by the drug squad. Maybe they could tell us more about who walks in and out of there everyday."

"Good thinking." Jo nodded appreciatively.

oOo

Emma and Susan Carpenter had no sooner sat down to discuss the press conference when Sally received a call from Sergeant Stone, asking her to meet him at the Blue Parrot Bar. She remembered the place all too well. It had been less than a week since she and Will had been called out there to deal with a customer. She could only guess what Will had told the DPS about what had happened there, but she was sure that the sergeant's visit was no coincidence. If it turned out that something criminal was going on there and that Will had looked the other way while she was covering for him, she could be in big trouble.

The bar was pretty hard to find and the first time, they had taken a good ten minutes to even locate the entrance, which was only accessible through a courtyard and not directly from the street. But she didn't even need to go inside the bar this time as Sergeant Stone was already waiting for her on the sidewalk, leaning against the slim wooden door that hid the alleyway leading to the courtyard. He looked like he had been in fight. There was a bloody smudge on his white shirt and the hint of a bruise on his right cheek. Yet, he seemed pleased and smiled when he spotted her. He pushed himself away from the wall and headed for the area car, which Sally had parked on the curb nearby.

"Sarge? Are you okay?" Sally asked, not sure what to make of it all. First Stone was backing out of the call to Susan Carpenter despite her potential importance to the case, then he was calling her out to this dive of a bar, clearly having come from a fight.

Stone shrugged in response to her question. "Why shouldn't I be?"

He was bound to attract questions, not just from her and while he could rely on her to keep quiet because of her own involvement, she doubted that Inspector Gold would be brushed off so easily.

She was about to point this out, but the look in Stone's eyes made her think twice. She decided to take the clue and remained silent as they got into the car and started driving back to the station.

oOo

"So, are you going to tell me what you were doing at the Blue Parrot?" Sally asked Sergeant Stone two hours later as they sat in the car, across the street from house number fourteen on Westwood Lane. So far, in the forty-five minutes that they had been watching the house in silence with only the sound of the rain keeping them company, no one had come or gone.

Stone was about to answer her, when there was a knock on the driver's side window. Sally looked up. Sam and the DCI were outside, presumably with the search authorization. Stone rolled down the window.

"Anything?" Jack asked. If he noticed, he didn't comment on the bruise that was now obvious on Stone's face.

Stone shook his head, speaking for the first time. "Nothing."

"Okay, let's do it, then," Jack decided. Sally and Stone got out of the car and followed the two detectives across the street. Jack walked up the steps to the front door and knocked forcefully. "Police, open up!"

After a moment of silence, they could hear footsteps approaching from inside. A few seconds later, the door was pulled open.

"What do you want?" a woman in her twenties demanded. She looked like she had only just gotten out of bed. Her red hair was unkempt and she was wearing a pink bathrobe. "Did he press charges?"

"Does John Hooper live here?" Jack asked her, ignoring what she had just said.

"He lives upstairs. If this is about the thing with Jason..."

"It isn't." Jack told her curtly. "Is he here?"

"No, haven't seen him all day." She was about the close the door again, but Jack stopped her.

"We still need to come in. We have a search warrant," he told her. She reluctantly opened the door to allow them inside. Once they were inside, she pointed to the narrow stairwell. "Upstairs, to the left. That's John's room."

"All right. Sally, you stay with Miss..."

"Carol Sanders."

"Stay with Miss Sanders. Sam, Sergeant Stone, you're with me." Jack and the others went up the stairs. Sally turned to Carol. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"The kitchen. I need a coffee anyways." She yawned.

Sally followed Carol into the small kitchen. It was tiny and slightly crammed, but neat.

Carol poured herself a cup of coffee before taking a seat at the table. Sally remained standing, Carol hadn't offered her a seat. "What can you tell me about John Hooper?"

"Mind if I smoke?" Carol asked, already preparing to light a cigarette. She motioned for Sally to take a seat.

oOo

The door to John's room was locked, but Sergeant Stone easily broke it down. Inside the room was Spartan. A bed, a desk, a wardrobe and a chair were the only furnishings. The bed was neatly made, the desk free of any clutter. There was a board on the wall beside the desk. Jack quickly scanned its contents. There were only two books on the shelf - the previous two books in the Zariel series. Jack flipped through the pages, but nothing was stuck between them. Sam had opened the wardrobe in the meantime and had started sifting through the piles of clothes. Most of them were ordinary clothes one would expect a man his age to wear.

"I don't see any robes, or any black clothes at all, for that matter," Sam told Jack once she'd finished going through the clothes.

"Well, if he's still wearing his costume…that could explain why we can't find it," Stone pointed out.

"Right, makes sense. But this is just too neat. We think he is our bomber, right? Then where did he make the bomb and how did he know what to do? Not that you can't find that sort of thing on the Internet these days, but I don't see a computer here or any tools, for that matter." She spread her arms in emphasis. There hadn't been time to do a more thorough check on their suspect, but since they had failed to find any evidence so far, they would have to take the time.

"We need to search the rest of the house," Jack concluded, having thought the same thing. He just wished the rest of the house were as neat and tidy as this room. It could take them days to get through it all - time they didn't have with a maniac like that loose in the streets.

oOo

"I really haven't known John that long. Only moved in here two months ago," Carol told Sally. "He may be a bit strange, but he is a good guy. Jason really had it coming, you know. I should have gotten rid of him ages ago."

"What happened between John and Jason?" Sally asked, curious, as this was the third mention of this incident. The check into John Hooper's background hadn't revealed any recent encounters with the police.

"That's not why you're here? I thought…" Carol trailed off. "Jason was my boyfriend. He was always winding John up, because, well, he is a bit strange, but Patrick really was going too far. One day, John simply snapped. He hit him. Nothing serious, but Jason said he was going to press charges."

"What you mean when you say that John is a bit strange?"

"Well, you haven't seen his room!" Carol exclaimed. "I've never seen anyone this tidy. Not that I mind, he even cleans up down here. Sorts the spices by alphabet, that sort of thing." Carol shrugged. She seemed bored and not too surprised about the police showing up at her door. She hadn't even asked what they wanted from her housemate. So either she knew or she at least suspected. Sally decided to change the topic and find out a little more about Carol herself, preferably without giving her the impression that she was being interrogated.

"We are interested in John's whereabouts earlier today. Were you at home?"

"When I got home at seven, he wasn't home. At least the light in his room wasn't on," Carol told her with a shrug. "I went to bed after that and haven't seen him since. But he would be at work now anyways. We don't see much of each other, with me working nights and him days. And if he's here, he hangs out in his room most of the time."

"So, how did you meet in the first place?" Sally asked, hoping to find out more, while keeping Carol talking.

"I put up a flyer at work. John works for a brewery as a deliveryman. He comes by the Blue Parrot every week, making his delivery," she explained. Sally fought to hide her surprise when Carol had mentioned the Blue Parrot. It had to be more than a coincidence that the name of the bar was popping up all over the investigation. She only wished she knew what Sergeant Stone had meant earlier, when he said that things were settled now. She hadn't thought it had anything to do with the case then, but she was rapidly changing her mind.

"What brewery does John work for?" Sally asked.

Before Carol could answer, Jack, Sam and Stone returned to the kitchen.

"Miss Sanders? I'm afraid we'll have to search the rest of the house as well. Are you and Mr. Hooper the only occupants?"

"Yes, our housemate moved out a couple of weeks ago. It's just us now," Carol confirmed. If she was bothered about the search or had something to hide, she didn't let on. "Sally, you stay with Miss Sanders."

Sally nodded.

"Do you want some coffee?" Carol asked, "It's still pretty hot"

"That would be very nice," Sally said politely, knowing that they would be here a while.

oOo

When Emma returned home for the second time that day, it was already dark. It was still raining, although the near-torrential flow of the afternoon had slowed to a drizzle. Still, Emma had seen enough of rain that day. She had already walked past the row of mailboxes in the hallway of her building when she saw something sticking out of hers. An alarm bell went off instantly inside her head. With her heart pounding, she backtracked. Wedged into her mailbox was a think brown envelope. She had already checked her mail the first time she had been home and this hadn't been there. Telling herself not to panic, she used a handkerchief and pulled it out.

'Moira Bliss' was written in big black letters on the front. She turned it over; it was fairly light, but solid. Like the present in the car. Another thought raced through her mind: if he had found out where she lived, did that mean he knew she wasn't really Moira Bliss? Was he watching her even now? Emma looked around in rising panic, but there was just an empty hallway. She tried to steady her breathing, trying to figure out what to do next. Opening it seemed out of the question. She had little doubt that it had come from the maniac that had attacked them at the conference centre and left the bomb in the car. It could be another bomb, ready to detonate the moment she opened the envelope. It could blow up at any moment, she realized somewhat belatedly. She started to run - down the hallway, back out the door, into the street. There was nowhere to go-- buildings lined the street, cars parked in front of them. At least with the rain and the late hour, there were no people about in the street. Emma was still running down the street, the envelope clutched in her right hand. The rain was flying in her face, obscuring her vision. Her lungs were starting to burn, her legs were aching from the effort, but she kept going. Until, suddenly, there was a bright light in her face, blinding her. She skidded to a stop, but almost slipped on the wet pavement. She overbalanced, dropping the envelope the same moment as tyres screeched loudly. Emma stared at the envelope in front of her. It just lay there, rain falling on it.

"..all right?" Only when a hand landed on her shoulder, Emma noticed him. For a paranoid moment, she'd wondered if he'd tried to run her over, but a second late reason kicked in. The man was short, heavy-set and nearly bald, bearing not the slightest resemblance to the man they were looking for.

"Are you all right?" the man asked again when she still hadn't answered.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," she finally managed. Before she could stop him, the man had picked up the envelope.

"I think you dropped this." He handed it back to her. She took it, but couldn't stop her hands from shaking. "Are you sure, you are all right?" he asked her again, watching her closely.

Emma only nodded, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. She was still staring at the envelope in her hands, the brown paper soggy and wet. The paper had torn, either when she'd dropped it or when the man had picked it up. Inside was an object wrapped in white lined paper.

Suddenly, the idea that it could be a bomb started to appear ridiculous and she couldn't help but laugh with relief. She turned to the man, for the first time taking in the scene as a whole. They were standing at the edge of a driveway, inches from the front bumper of a car. The driver side door was opened, wipers and engine still running.

"I'm sorry," Emma apologized as she tried to stop laughing. "I should have watched where I was going." She giggled again, feeling almost dizzy from the adrenaline rush.

Not waiting for an answer, she turned away and started walking back in the direction she had come from.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

oOo

"I'm calling the undercover operation off," Jack declared. The DCI looked tired, but although it was two in the morning, by the time they spoke, Emma doubted he had been home asleep.

"But, sir..." she began. They couldn't give up now. Not when they were this close.

"No. It's too dangerous. I shouldn't have let it get this far in the first place." Jack rubbed a hand over his face, sounding even more tired than he looked. "He knows where you live and probably also knows that you are a police officer. You aren't safe until we've caught this guy."

"Exactly," Emma said as she got ready to argue her case. "I might as well help catch him for good. This is our best chance of drawing him out." She pointed to the letter on Jack's desk.

The ink had been partially smudged by the water and some words had been rendered illegible, but its contents were clear. It was the first page of Susan Carpenter's manuscript, along with a set of instructions for the hand-over of the remainder of the manuscript in exchange for the comparatively measly sum of 10,000 GBP.

They would need to have Susan Carpenter authenticate the piece, of course, but Emma had no doubt that it was genuine. The words, the tone and the expressions - they exactly fitted the style of the books. Along with the piece of the manuscript, a letter containing brief instructions and a mobile phone had been inside the envelope. It had been turned over to the crime lab for examination, but between the rain, Emma and the unknown driver touching the envelope, there was little chance of them finding any foreign prints or other trace evidence, much less in what little time they had available until the deadline.

"It's too dangerous," Jack told her again, as if he hadn't even listened to what she had said. Anger welled up inside her. After all they had done, after all she had done, they couldn't simply walk away now. It was too late for that. By going public as Moira Bliss, she had drawn out this maniac.

"I know that, sir." Emma began again. "But...it's just that I feel responsible for what happened. If I hadn't pretended to be Moira Bliss in the first place, none of this would have happened." Emma had had doubts before, but this was the first time, and she genuinely regretted what she had done. It suddenly seemed so pointless. She felt like she hadn't achieved anything and all she had done was put herself and her colleagues in danger. It didn't seem worth it now, not even remotely.

"Well, there is no going back now," Jack commented.

Emma was well aware of that, but the knowledge didn't ease her conscience.

"Is there any news on DC Webb?" she asked, hoping that at least Mickey would be all right. She would never forgive herself if he didn't make it.

"Nothing yet. But no news is probably good news at this point," he replied. Emma's heart sank. She hadn't known it was that serious. She still wanted to go ahead with the hand-over, but she wasn't ready to put anyone else in jeopardy either. But ultimately, it wasn't her decision to make. The extortionist might have demanded that she make the hand-over, but she couldn't and wouldn't do it without back-up.

The DCI interrupted her thoughts, "You better stay at the station tonight. It's the safest place for you at the moment."

Emma hadn't even thought of that. But it made sense. The envelope had been delivered to her apartment, he knew where she lived, possibly had followed her somehow since the press conference, Emma thought. He could have found out where she lived when she'd gone home earlier to change. Neither she nor Roger had noticed anything out of the ordinary, but at least her mind had been elsewhere.

"I better call the superintendent, now," Jack said with a sigh, clearly not looking forward to waking the superintendent at such an early hour. Emma didn't envy him.

"I think I'll have another look at Moira's fan mail," she said. Emma didn't know why, but she had the feeling that they had missed something.

oOo

By the time morning rolled around, Emma was exhausted. She had spent the last three hours reading Moira's fan mail, without making any headway, not that she even knew what she was looking for. They had identified their man, the prints on the machete were clear proof and Jo had found footage of him loitering in proximity of the murder scene. There were a few blanks left to fill in, but everyone seemed confident that John Hooper was the man they were looking for, despite the search of his room failing to turn up any evidence linking him to either crime.

Emma was just about to get another cup of coffee when Reg poked his head in to tell her that a briefing regarding the case had been called. She followed him into the briefing room, where most of CID was already gathered as well as a few of the uniformed officers of the station. Emma and Reg took their seats and waited for the briefing to start. A few more people arrived, folders were passed around, and then Superintendent Heaton began with the briefing.

"You have all received a copy of the letter that was left at PC Keane's apartment sometime yesterday. It was accompanied by a page from the missing manuscript. Miss Carpenter has authenticated the page and it is definitely from her manuscript," Heaton briefly explained the events of the night.

"Given the short time deadline, there is no chance that we'll be able to raise the funds in time, even if we wanted to, so we'll have to play it risky and catch him in the act. We assume that this man," Jack indicated Hooper's picture on the whiteboard. "will be there to collect the money, We do not know how or where the hand-over will take place. A pay-as-you-go mobile has been delivered along with the letters. PC Keane was told to expect a call at exactly 8 a.m," Jack continued.

Emma checked her watch, as did most people in the room. They had a little under two hours left until the call. Even though they couldn't really prepare for the hand-over in advance, there would still be plenty to do.

"In order to preserve PC Keane's cover, which we have to assume is still intact," Sam stressed, "she will return to her flat and take the call there, just in case Hooper or an accomplice is following her or watching her apartment. Tony and Reg, you'll follow her there. Stay with her, but keep your distance and stay in radio contact. Sally and Sergeant Stone are already in the building across the street and will take over from you there. Terry and I will co-ordinate everything," Sam said, explaining the details of the operation that had been set up rather hurriedly. "Timing is everything. Our goal is to make an arrest as early as possible."

"This is a high risk operation. We cannot exclude the possibility that Hooper has planted more bombs, which may or may not be remote controlled. Keep your eyes open and look out for anyone acting suspiciously. Hooper could have accomplices," Sam continued explaining the roles of everyone involved. Emma stopped listening. They had been over everything before the briefing. She would be watched at all times, and the wire would allow them to hear every word she said. Still, it was risky, but Emma didn't fear so much for her own safety as for that of her colleagues. Hooper could have killed her; he had had more than one chance. He could have killed her with the machete or later when she had returned home alone, but he hadn't. She believed that the real target of the bomb in the car had been Sam and Mickey, in an attempt to scare her.

The briefing finished a few minutes later without her having paid much attention. She checked her watch again. The briefing had taken almost forty-five minutes in all and the time of the call was approaching. Emma was starting to feel nervous, but tried to hide her anxiety when Tony and Reg walked up to her, seemingly excited and in good spirits. Emma forced a smile on her face.

"Nervous?" Tony asked.

"A bit," she lied.

"I would be if I were you," Reg said, clearly pleased that it wasn't him. "I just spoke with Sally. She says everything's clear on their end."

Emma hadn't expected much else, but she was still relieved. "Let's get going then." she said with far more confidence than she felt.

oOo

Sally was bored and tired. She had been called away from a nice relaxing bath only to sit in a vacant apartment, staring out into a dark street. The fact that Stone hadn't said a word the entire time wasn't helping. She was itching to ask him about the Blue Parrot again, even though he had made it clear that he wasn't going to tell her what he'd been doing there.

"Did you know that Carol Sanders works at the Blue Parrot? She met John Hooper there." Sally hadn't known how to begin a conversation that was bound to be awkward, so she had decided to bluntly plunge forward.

Stone turned his head from the window and looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

"That's interesting," he commented after a long pause. Sally tried to figure out what he was thinking, but as always, the sergeant was impossible to read. "I think you and I will have to pay them another visit."

Sally was about to reply when a car pulled up in front of Emma's building. Both watched as Emma climbed out, unlocked the front door and slipped inside. A few minutes later, the radio came to life. It was Emma, checking in and making sure that the wire was set up correctly and that they were receiving her.

According to her, everything was quiet at the apartment - nothing out of the ordinary. So far so good. Stone confirmed that they hadn't seen anything either. It was now 7.12 a.m. Sally and Stone continued to wait in silence, neither of them raising the topic of the Blue Parrot again. It was something they were going to deal with later, after the hand-over had gone down.

oOo

Emma sank down on the couch in her small living room, still wearing her coat. She placed the unregistered mobile phone on the table in front of her. She sighed nervously. She had never felt this tense and vulnerable inside her own home, despite finding the door locked and everything untouched, just the way she had left it the previous afternoon. There was no sign anyone had entered it without her permission, yet she could almost feel another presence in the room with her. Emma got up, paced nervously, only to sit down again a few moments later. She didn't manage to keep still for very long before she got up once again, deciding that she had plenty of time to make herself a cup of tea. She was almost through with the cup when the cell phone in front of her chirped, telling her that she had received a text message. It was three minutes to eight. Emma read the message with trembling fingers.

"We're on," she told her colleagues who were listening in. "Canley Shopping Mall car park in twenty minutes. He'll send further instructions then."

"Received," Sergeant Stone's voice in her ear replied. "We'll follow you at a distance. It's going to be close, but we'll try to get there ahead of you."

Emma slipped her keys and the mobile into one of her coat pockets and quickly left her apartment. Twenty minutes would be cutting it close, so she needed to hurry.

oOo

Despite many nervous glances in the rear-view mirror, Emma hadn't detected anyone following her on the drive to the mall. Without incident and just on time, she pulled into the car park. At the early hour, she easily found a free spot near the exit.

"I'm there and waiting for instructions," she informed her back-up. "I don't think I've been followed." Emma glanced through the car window, trying to ascertain if anyone was watching her. There were few cars in the car park, but Hooper could be hiding inside any one of them.

"We haven't seen anyone either, but we lost you at an intersection. Our ETA should be about five minutes. Sam and Terry are on their way as well but they're having some trouble with the receiver on their end." Great, Emma thought. She was about to head out into a place filled with people to meet a dangerous psychopath who might just blow them all up all the while CID was trying to get their equipment plugged in straight. If there was indeed a bomb, they would probably be hearing about it on the news, Emma thought darkly when the phone in her lap announced the arrival of another text message. It was equally succinct as the first one.

_Junghans' Jewlery Store. 90 seconds._

Emma climbed out of the car and started running.

oOo

Emma ran through the mall, zigzagging around shoppers, ignoring the odd looks she was getting. She didn't know what was going to happen if she didn't make it in time. The extortionist hadn't made any specific threats, but Emma wasn't very keen to find out, even though she knew from the many times she had patrolled the mall that she would have to be very lucky to remain within the time limit. The jeweller's shop specified in the message was on the second level of the mall. Emma reached the escalator, having decided against taking the elevator and began jogging up the steps. A woman yelled at her when Emma rudely shoved past her, but she didn't have time to apologize. Up ahead a more serious problem was waiting for her. A mall security guard had positioned himself at the front of the escalator, arms crossed in front of his chest, a scowl on his face. Three more steps and she would run straight into him. Emma was mentally running through her options only to fail to come up with anything workable. She was no match for him physically - he outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. She couldn't possibly shove him out of the way and there was no time for explanations, not that anyone would believe her anyways. She had barely reached the top of the escalator when the security guard grabbed her by the forearm and pulled her aside.

"Not so fast young lady." He stopped her.

Emma desperately tried to break free of his grip, without any success. Not knowing what else to do, she kicked him in the shin, but he only laughed.

"Just where do you think you are going?" he asked her.

Emma could only hope that her colleagues were hearing what was going on and would find some way to intervene. Emma threw a quick glance back down to the lower level, but while she was attracting quite a few on-lookers, there was no familiar face in the crowd.

"Please, you have to let me go. It is an emergency," Emma pleaded. What if Hooper had planted another bomb, somewhere in the building, she wondered. Dozens of people could be injured or killed.

"Let's see what you have in your bag instead," he replied good-naturedly, clueless about the gravity of the situation.

"I swear, I didn't steal anything. Just let me go!" She tried to break free once again, knowing already that she would be wasting her breath. Why weren't Stone and Sally answering on the radio? Had something gone wrong with the operation? Were her colleagues in trouble? Questions over questions raced through her mind.

"Please, there might be a bomb in the building." Emma resorted to the only option her panicked mind could come up with. She was bound to cause a mass panic that way and the operation would definitely go bust, but she didn't have any other choice, without back-up and faced with an unknown threat from a dangerous psychopath.

"Do you know how serious this is?" the security guard questioned. "You will be in big trouble if this turns out to be a hoax."

"I'm serious. I'm a police officer," Emma stated as calmly as she could. "And no, I can't prove it, but you have to get everyone out. Now!" Emma put as much authority into her words as she possibly could and it seemed to be working. Disbelief made way to alarm and fear on the security guard's face and he reached for his radio. While he spoke, Emma looked around again. The crowd around them had gotten bigger but there was still no sign of back-up. She couldn't help the feeling that something must have gone dreadfully wrong for her colleagues to leave her hanging like this.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

oOo

"There must be something wrong with the receiver on their end," Sally was telling Callum as she tried to raise Terry and Sam on the radio once again. The signal from Emma was still coming through strong. From the sound of it, she was currently racing to meet the deadline.

Suddenly, the sound of footfalls stopped and an unfamiliar voice crackled over the radio line, and what they heard didn't sound good in the least.

Stone turned to Sally, wanting to tell her to get on to Reg and Tony and find out where they were puttering around. He was distracted merely for a split second, but it was enough to miss the moving van up head running a red light and cutting them off. It was only when Sally screamed for him to stop that he became aware of the danger. He slammed on the brakes, but it was already too late. Metal hit metal with a sickening crunch and the small car's occupants were propelled forwards by the force of the impact.

oOo

"I don't believe this," Terry exclaimed, not for the first time on the drive to the shopping mall. Sam looked up from the radio in her lap, where, without much success, she'd been trying to tune into the right frequency to see what the cause of Terry's ever shortening temper was this time.

Before them, a long line of cars was stretching out. She couldn't see what the obstacle causing the traffic jam was, but whatever it was, it seemed to be taking its time. Some people had already left their cars and were chatting on the sidewalk. They clearly expected to be there a while. Sam sighed. This was getting better and better. She checked her watch and sighed again. Four minutes until the deadline and they were nowhere near the shopping mall. They had already known that they wouldn't make it in time as the way from the station was considerably longer than from Emma's apartment. Now it was starting to look like the others would have to make do without their help and they couldn't even let Emma know, as the radio stubbornly refused to receive the frequency they had agreed upon.

Sam looked into the rear view mirror, but it was already too late for a U-turn. Two more cars had joined in the traffic jam and they were now caught right in the middle.

Seeing Terry on the sidewalk, she got out of the car as well. It was then that she first smelled the smoke. Jogging further ahead, she could see it too, rising from somewhere at the front of the traffic jam. They weren't the only ones who had noticed. More people were getting out of their cars, pointing up ahead.

"Terry, call the station and the fire brigade, use your mobile if you have to and try and keep these people back!" she yelled, already running towards the source of the rising smoke. She pushed her way past people, yelling at them to please stay back, but hardly anyone was listening to her; people were even joining her, curious to see for themselves what the delay was all about.

When Sam could finally see what had caused the traffic jam, panic washed through her. Up ahead, a large white moving van was blocking the intersection. Smashed into its side was a small blue car. She recognised it even before she saw the index. It was one of the CID cars from Sun Hill and it didn't take a lot of hard guesswork to figure out who was inside. Sam sped up, ignoring the people blocking her way and the burn from the acrid smoke in her throat and lungs. She finally reached the badly damaged car. The windshield had been shattered and smoke was rising from the warped bonnet in thick black clouds. Sam rushed to the passenger door, it being the closest to her. She reached out to pull it open, but immediately pulled her hand back when her skin came into contact with the hot metal. Ignoring the pain, Sam shrugged out of her jacket and wrapped it around her right hand and arm. Thus protected, she was able to get the door open. The small figure slumped over in the passenger seat belonged to Sally. Sam reached out and gently laid two fingers against her neck. There was a rapid pulse beating underneath. She softly shook the other woman's shoulder.

"Sally, Sally, can you hear me?" Sally immediately reacted, her head shooting up into a sitting position. Wide-eyed, she turned and stared at Sam, fear and confusion on her face. "Can you move?" Sam pressed on, fearing that the car would catch fire any moment.

Sally nodded

Sam quickly helped her unfasten the seatbelt and pulled her to her feet. She was aware that in doing so, she risked worsening her injuries, but with the flames threatening to consume the car, she had no other choice. As she was walking Sally over to the sidewalk, aided by one of the on-lookers, Sam saw that Terry had arrived at the scene of the accident as well.

As soon as she was certain that Sally would be all right for the moment, she joined Terry at the other side, where he was trying to free Sergeant Stone from the wreckage. Fortunately, like Sally he was at least semiconscious and able to aid them in their efforts. The trio had just stumbled away from the car when flames reached the interior of the CID car. Terry began yelling for everyone to move back, while Sam helped Callum sit down on the curb. He appeared dazed and his movements were a little uncoordinated, but a gash on his forehead was the only visible injury.

"Sally?" he asked, eyes focused on the now burning car. "Did you get her out?"

Sam nodded. "She should be fine." She didn't really know that, but Sally had been up and walking with some help, making her confident that neither of the two officers had sustained overly serious injuries in the crash. Overhead, the sound of sirens filled the smoky air.

oOo

Emma hesitated for a moment, but when she saw that the security guard was still occupied, she started to run. One of the onlookers was yelling for someone to stop her, probably assuming that she was a shoplifter, but Emma simply ran, not looking back. The jeweller was located at the other side of the second level, at the far end of the mall. Emma rounded a bend. The business should have come into view now, but all there was where the shop had once been was a building fence, the area behind it hidden by a huge tent of tarp. It was only when Emma came to a stop in front of the fence that she realised that her mobile hadn't rung again since she had received the message in the parking garage. She should have received further instructions by now unless, of course, he was watching her and knew she had been delayed by the security guard. She should have looked more closely at the faces of the onlookers. Hooper might have been in the crowd, maybe in disguise once again.

"Sally? Sergeant Stone? Are you still receiving me?" she whispered. She got no answer. The radio had gone dead.

Emma swore, unsure what to do next. If it hadn't been for the authentic page of the manuscript, she would have started to wonder if it had all been a wind-up, some merry prankster getting a kick out of jerking the police around.

Overhead, a loudspeaker sounded, a voice advising everyone, in the interest of their own safety, to proceed to the nearest exit. Emma ignored the announcement, not even taking note of people rushing towards the exits in panic. Slipping between two elements of the building fence, she moved behind the tarp, out of view of anyone looking for stragglers. She wasn't sure what to do. She had not been given any instructions on where to deposit the money, although she had to admit that the building site was a well chosen location. The tarp hid it both from the view of the general public and the CCTV cameras that were positioned strategically around the mall. Inside, the partially torndown walls of the former jewellery story further obstructed the view and offered several places for the extortionist to hide out of view. Still contemplating her options, Emma heard a metallic rattling like someone else had squeezed through the small opening in the building fence. Emma quickly ducked behind a stack of bricks, quietly listening. The tarp rustled a second later, followed by the sound of footfalls on concrete. From her position, it was impossible to see what was going on; all Emma had to go on was her hearing. The footfalls stopped. Emma could almost feel the presence of another person. On her hands and knees, she inched forwards. The dust from the floor made her nose itch. She tried to fight the urge to sneeze, but couldn't hold back. Surging upwards, she sneezed. A black-clothed figure standing only a few feet from where she had been hiding, but head turned in the opposite direction, whirled around. She hadn't thought she would recognize him, but face to face with the man once again, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the young man was John Hooper, the same man who had held a machete to her face less than twenty-four hours ago. Fear rippled through her as they stared at each other, neither of them moving for an instant. Emma could still feel the cold steel against her cheek, shuddering internally as the memory threatened to overwhelm her. Her daze was only broken when John turned around and started running. She went after him. Hooper pushed his way past the tarp, Emma only inches behind him. For a brief moment she lost sight of her target, but the second she came through she was hit by something large and heavy. She stumbled and the object landed on top of her. She tried to push herself back up to continue her pursuit, but up ahead John Hooper was already being arrested, by Tony Stamp.

Emma finally managed to crawl out from under the fallen fencing element. She clambered back to her feet, suddenly feeling weak and unsteady. A supporting hand appeared at her elbow. Emma accepted it gladly and let herself be guided away from the building site and to a nearby bench. Only when she was off her feet, she looked up, seeing Reg Hollis at her side. Emma watched, still stunned, as John Hooper was hand-cuffed and led away by Tony, aided by Terry Perkins, who suddenly had shown up as well. Sam was there too and she came walking over to them. She and Reg spoke quietly for a few moments. They were standing at some distance from Emma and she couldn't make out all the words over the rushing in her ears. She didn't care. All she felt was relief that it was all over. However, there was one thing she needed to know. She got back to her feet and walked over to where Sam and Reg were standing.

"Did they find another bomb?"

Sam shook her head. "Not yet; they are still sweeping the building, but it is unlikely. The mall only opened at 8 and security is pretty tight."

Emma nodded. "I saw that." It came out more accusatory than she had meant to.

"I'm sorry, Emma. There was a malfunction with the wire and then Sally and Callum got into a car accident on the way here. It wasn't their fault though. Another driver ignored a red light and cut them off."

"Are they all right?" Emma asked. She had known that there was a good reason her colleagues had left her out to dry like this.

"They should be fine. Callum probably has a touch of whiplash, but they are going to be all right, really," Sam seemed to pick up on her concern and quickly reassured her. "What about you?"

"I'm okay, I just..." Emma didn't know how to put into words the combination of bone-deep exhaustion and relieved light-headedness.

"Better have the FME check you out back at the station. I don't think the DCI will mind you taking the rest of the day off."

With a lengthy report to complete, it probably would still be afternoon before she left the station, Emma thought tiredly. There was still a lot of work left for CID, in order to connect the dots and unearth further evidence of John Hooper's involvement in the murder of Rebecca Williams. Depending on Hooper's willingness to confess, the investigation might drag on for quite a while, until the CPS could charge him for all his crimes. But for Emma, the work was done. She had played her part and overall, she could have done worse, she thought. Part of her still wished she'd never gotten involved, but Hooper's arrest had been a satisfying sight.

"I'm sure the report can wait another day," Sam told her, as if reading her mind. Emma nodded gratefully.

oOo

"So what to you want to start with? Murder, attempted murder, assault or extortion?" Terry asked John Hooper once the record for the tape had been set and they were ready to begin with the interview. Hooper had shown himself to be co-operative through his arrest so far and had willingly volunteered his details for the tape, but hadn't made any admissions otherwise. He had, of course, been searched, but other than an unregistered mobile phone, nothing had been found.

"I have nothing to do with any of that," Hooper protested, but his tone of voice was odd; he didn't appear to even care what was happening to him. If anything, he seemed almost content, his features and posture much more relaxed than the situation warranted.

"So, you are admitting to the assault?" Jo asked sharply.

Hooper only nodded.

"Please answer for the tape." Jo reminded him, while Terry was still surprised at the confession.

"Yes, I admit that I did what some might interpret as assault," he replied casually. "But it wasn't."

"Wasn't what?" Terry enquired.

"Assault ,of course. I had to save Zariel," Hooper replied with utmost conviction.

Terry had seen suspects try this tack before, but if it was an act, he had never seen one this convincing.

"Can you please describe exactly what happened?

Terry felt anger rising inside him as he listened to Hooper describe the attack on Emma and Mickey at the conference centre without showing any emotion, least of all remorse for what he had done. Part of him wondered if they shouldn't suspend the interview for the moment and have a professional make sure that Hooper was indeed fit to be detained and interviewed. He had been cautioned, of course, and had indicated that he understood the caution, but it would only be too easy for even a mediocre lawyer to trip them up later if he turned out be a genuine nut case.

"And then?" Jo prompted.

Hooper looked at her questioningly. "I left. I took the bus, if you must know. But as I said, I have nothing to do with all those other things you mentioned." He smiled kindly, almost child-like.

Terry and Jo shared a look of disbelief. Could Hooper be for real? Why would he confess the one crime and deny the others? Unless, of course, he was much smarter then either of them was giving him credit for and he knew that the assault was the only case in which they had solid proof of his guilt.

"So, you are saying that you just wound up at the Canley shopping mall by accident this morning?" Terry asked while trying to remain focussed on the evidence.

"I tried telling that to the other officers when they brought me here. I got a letter. And the phone you took, it was in the letter too."

"What letter?" Terry asked harshly, as he already had an idea where Hooper was trying to go with this. It was clever, he had to admit it.

"Last night, I got this letter. In it, it said that if I really wanted to stop Zariel from going to hell, I should wait for a call. I didn't really think that anyone would call, but I got a text the next morning telling me to go to the mall. When I was there, I got another text telling me to go to this store. Except there was no store, it was just a building site. And that was where you arrested me. What I still don't know is how you found me there."

"Have a guess." Terry could hardly believe his ears. Hooper was even more daring than he'd thought before, although, Terry had to admit, the story was so ludicrous that it might actually be true. Some things you just couldn't make up. If this was indeed the case, then tech support would be wasting their time with the cell phone. Still, he wasn't ready to give up yet.

"Listen, I have seen a lot of people try and lie their way out of a jam. Some can be pretty convincing, others not so much. And your story has to be the worst excuse I have heard in a long time." Terry was going to try the hard way to see if he couldn't get a full confession out of Hooper.

"Just admit it. You haven't got much to lose now, do you? You just admitted to a serious assault on a police officer. Do you know what happens if he doesn't make it? You will be up for murder." Jo took over from Terry, continuing in the same vein. The pressure was on now.

"I didn't mean that. I never meant to hurt that copper," Hooper said, but despite his words, his voice was as flat as ever. Not a trace of remorse, Terry thought. "I was just trying to save Zariel."

"Save him from what, exactly?" Jo's voice softened for a moment.

"From going to Hell, of course. You do know he's a fallen angel, don't you?" Hooper asked, as if he was talking about a person just as real as the three of them.

"Yeah, I read the books," Jo replied, emphasizing the last word. If the not so subtle reminder that Zariel was fictional bothered him, Hooper didn't let on.

"How were you going to save Zariel?" Terry tried his best to sound understanding, but the truth was, he didn't' care about Hooper's twisted motives. He cared about getting a confession from a man who had killed a woman and willingly risked the deaths of four of his colleagues. The last Terry had heard, Mickey might still become one of his victims.

"I was trying to stop her from publishing her last book. Rumour has it that Zariel is going to die at the end of the series. He can't go to Hell. That's the only reason I went to the conference centre. I needed to talk to Moira Bliss and I'd heard that she'd be there. I was only trying to get her attention. Otherwise I would never have brought the machete. That with your colleague was an accident."

"And the bomb? What was that all about? You couldn't have known that Miss Bliss wouldn't be caught in the explosion as well, or was that your back-up plan in case she didn't listen to you?"

Hooper stared at Terry, not saying a word. "What bomb?" he finally whispered in a toneless voice. "Why would I want to kill her?"

"We'll find out. Maybe it's debts, maybe it's drugs, but I don't know and frankly I don't care. But I promise you, we will find out the truth." Terry said, switching back to a different approach, as their current one clearly wasn't working too well.

"That's good," Hooper replied, sounding upbeat. "Then you'll know soon that I didn't kill anyone."

"Then what were you doing outside the Gardena Hotel on Wednesday night?" Jo asked. Good question, Terry thought. Hooper, who seemed to have an explanation for everything, had yet to explain away his presence on the CCTV footage.

"I was making a delivery."

"Don't lie to me. We have it on tape, you weren't making a delivery. You were waiting for something. What was it?"

"Nothing." Hooper shrugged, for the first time appearing defensive. They had clearly hit a weak spot in his story. Maybe with a bit of pressure, Hooper would give up the truth. "And that's all I'm going to say." He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Terry suppressed a sigh. They weren't going to get anything now. The assault on Mickey and Emma would most likely stick and maybe the CPS could turn it into an attempted murder charge, but that was really the best they could hope for in their present situation. They needed a different approach and Terry had just had an idea how they might accomplish that.

oOo

"You can't be serious!" Emma exclaimed when Terry explained his proposition to her. "I can't still pretend that I'm Moira Bliss. He must know that I'm police; why else would he have gotten arrested at the mall? I doubt he's that stupid."

"He isn't stupid at all, at least I don't think he is," Jo said.

"I agree. He knows exactly what we have on him. He's only confessed to the assault on you and Mickey. He denies having anything to do with the bomb in your car or Rebecca's murder. He even claims that the only reason he was at the mall was because he too was told that he could get the manuscript."

"Do you believe him?" Emma asked her colleagues as, not having attended the interview herself, she wasn't in the best position to judge.

Terry merely shrugged, seemingly mulling over something else in his mind.

"I think he's a nutter," Jo told her. "Anyone who kills people over a fictional character has to be a few short of a full set. For him, Zariel seems to be perfectly real, to the point of where he is ready to kill to stop him from dying. At least that is what he claims he was trying to do when he confronted you at the conference center. According to him, Mickey just got in the way and he had never intended to hurt him."

"Makes sense to me that he would be trying to wriggle himself out of an attempted murder charge. Why go for that if you can have assault instead?" Terry commented.

Emma turned to the detective. "So you don't think he's crazy?"

Terry hadn't answered the question earlier. Now too, he just looked at her, and then shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I think," he finally said. "We need a confession from Hooper, otherwise we can forget about the rest of the charges."

Emma nodded. "Okay, I'll do it," she agreed, not feeling very enthusiastic about the idea in the least. She had hoped that she was done playing her part, but that had probably been wishful thinking. It couldn't really hurt, could it, she reminded herself. They were inside a police station. Even if her cover was blown, she wouldn't be risking anything. Still, the thought of another confrontation with Hooper made her uneasy. She hated to admit it, but she was afraid of John Hooper and how he'd react when he saw her again now that he had to have worked out that she couldn't be the real Moira Bliss.

oOo

After discussing strategy with Jo and Terry, Emma spent a few minutes freshening up, straightening her clothes and hair before she accompanied Jo to the interview room.

Jo entered first, Emma behind her.

"I told you..." Hooper began, but fell silent when he saw Emma. "Miss...Miss Bliss?" he stammered.

"Yes." Emma took a seat opposite Hooper where Terry had sat earlier. Before she could begin the conversation, as she had discussed earlier with the two detectives, Hooper began apologizing. "Miss Bliss, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. All I wanted to do was talk to you and...and I didn't know how else to get your attention. I couldn't get into the press conference because I'm not a journalist, but I knew you would be there, so I just waited. I had only brought that machete in case something went wrong. I never meant to use it, not even on that copper. I'm really sorry he got hurt and I hope he'll recover." The words tumbled from Hooper's mouth in a rapid stream.

Emma smiled, abandoning their agreed strategy for the moment and simply went with the flow.

"Is that what you meant to do at the hotel, too? Get my attention? I know you didn't mean to hurt anyone," she asked sweetly.

Hooper nodded vigorously. "I swear that is all I was trying to do. I was watching her. At first, I was standing in the street, but then I noticed the CCTV cameras and went into the parking lot. I waited there until Rebecca showed up. I just wanted to talk to her, but she was with this police officer and he threatened to arrest me if I didn't leave," Hooper told her in rapid words. Emma had several questions and she was sure Jo did as well, but the more Hooper told them of his own accord, the easier it would be when the case came to court. "They went into the hotel. I waited some more, then I went after them. I had to pay the receptionist 20 GBP so that she would give me the room number, but she still wouldn't give me her key. She said it would cost me much more than I could afford and she was right because the twenty was all I had." Hooper continued, now talking more slowly, but still brimming with excitement. "I was going to knock on the door, but it was already broken when I got there. They were in bed and she woke up. The bloke just kept sleeping. I think he was passed out or something." Hooper shrugged. "I just wanted to talk to her, you have to believe me!" His tone was pleading now, but he still sounded like a child. Emma wondered if he was aware what he was confessing to. Was he so far gone that he didn't realize he was digging his own grave?

"What happened next?" Emma asked softly, hoping that she had gained his trust and he would tell her the rest of the story.

Hooper kept his head down as he went on, almost as if ashamed of what he was going to say. "I told her that she couldn't let Miss Bliss kill Zariel. I wasn't threatening her or anything, but she just started screaming. She wouldn't stop. She tried to run away and then she locked herself into the bathroom. She was still screaming. I thought someone had to be hearing her, but her friend just kept sleeping. I had to calm her down. So I knocked down the door to the bathroom. It was really easy, much easier than I'd thought actually. I told her that I wouldn't hurt her, but she kept screaming and trying to run away. Somehow the mirror broke. There was glass everywhere and she was trying to cut me. So I cut her first. I didn't mean to hurt her, but she was bleeding so badly I had to put her in the tub. Everything was full of blood. My clothes too. I knew I couldn't leave them there, so I went back into the room. The other bloke's shirt was lying around so I put that on. Didn't really fit me, but it was okay."

That would explain where the rest of Will's uniform had gone. She'd found him wearing only his trousers. Everything but his shirt had been recovered later by the CSE. Now they knew what had happened to it as well. That was one question solved, while Hooper's story, should it be the truth, left more then a few questions open. In no way had he mentioned the drugs that had been found in Will's system and, as the toxicological analysis had revealed, in minor quantities also in Rebecca's system.

From what he had told her, Will had already been drugged, possibly unconscious by the time Hooper had killed Rebecca. There was more that didn't add up. Hooper had claimed the door was already open when he arrived, but in fact, the lock had been forced. Why would he lie about such an inconsequential detail when he was admitting to murder? Emma's mind was awash with questions. She was glad when Jo continued the interview.

"Does what you just told Miss Bliss mean that you admit that you are responsible for Rebecca Williams's death?"

Hooper nodded sadly, turning to Jo. "I didn't mean to, but it's my fault, I'm not denying that. Same with your colleague, it was an accident," he repeated, for the first time showing genuine remorse. However he perked up again a few seconds later, looking at Emma with a broad smile on his face.

"You aren't mad." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Emma didn't know what to say, she didn't even know if Hooper was waiting for an answer at all, but even if she had wanted to, she couldn't have said if she was angry or not. Hooper was a murderer all right, but his immature demeanour made Emma wonder how far he was responsible for what he was doing.

"No, I'm not mad," she finally said.

"That's good." Hooper grinned. "Does that mean you won't kill Zariel?"

Emma didn't have to answer. Jo took over, arresting Hooper for the second time that day, this time for the murder of Rebecca Williams.

oOo

The atmosphere in the pub was decidedly celebratory. Almost everyone who'd gotten off shift at the station after the day had gathered at the pub to celebrate the closing of a difficult case as well as the good news that Mickey Webb had pulled through and was now well on his way to recovery. CID and uniform alike were drinking and talking and everyone seemed to be in good spirits, or at least so it seemed to Emma, who found herself not at all in the mood to celebrate. She didn't quite know why. Maybe it was because she was tired, or because in the end, many questions might never be answered, such as the reason Will had ended up with a near fatal overdose of Mercury. Had he taken it himself after all? She didn't know what Will himself had told the DPS. All she had heard from Sam and Mickey the other day was that Will was in the clear for the murder of Rebecca. As to what to DPS thought about how the drugs had ended up in his system, Emma didn't know and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Tiredly, she took a sip from her beer. Maybe she should just go home, have an early night in, she thought. She could use the sleep.

"What are you doing, sitting here all alone, Emma? a familiar voice asked from behind. Emma turned around, not believing her ears at first. But it really was Will standing there. He still looked pretty pale, but he was smiling broadly at her and Emma couldn't help but smile back.

"That's better," he said, enveloping her in a hug. "I hear you are the hero of the day."

"I had plenty of help." she simply said, suddenly feeling a whole lot better now that Will had shown up. "Still, you got him, Emma." Will beamed at her. "Don't you want to join the others? Even the sergeant seems to be in a good mood for a change..."

"Yeah, I will. I'll just be a moment," Emma excused herself, intending to go for a breath of fresh air before joining the others. She made her way through the crowded pub and stepped outside. The air was pleasantly cool and smelled of rain. Leaning her back against the wall of the pub, she closed her eyes for a moment, taking in the night air. For the first time in days, she felt something akin to contentment.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

oOo

"Didn't meet any hot nurses at the hospital then?" Tony asked him sitting at the bar with Roger and Reg.

"Not really," Will replied. "Why do you think I'm back with you lot already?" Will grinned, as he gathered drinks for him and Emma from the woman behind the bar.

"Why don't you join us?" Tony asked, indicating a vacant stool next to him.

"Seems like I'm in high demand today. I'm sitting back there with the others. Have you seen Emma by any chance?"

"I think she went to get some fresh air," Tony said and shrugged. Will looked around the pub, trying to quieten the alarm bells that were already going off inside his head. He walked back to the corner where the majority of his colleagues sat, but Emma hadn't returned there either and no one had seen her since she'd left. Will put down the two beverages and excused himself, well aware of the odd looks he was getting from the others. He ignored them and made his way to the exit. Outside, the street was deserted and faint rain had started to fall. Will walked a few meters down the street, first in one direction, then the other, but there was nothing. He was beginning to feel a little silly. Emma had really seemed tired and a bit uncomfortable. She had probably just gone home early, he tried telling himself. It wasn't until he spotted a purse lying on the sidewalk, that he knew his fears were well founded. He reached down, but even before he had had a look inside, he knew it belonged to Emma. The driving license and ID inside confirmed that. The purse itself was wet, but the ground underneath dry. It had to have been there for at least ten minutes, maybe more, Will estimated. What did that mean? Was Emma in danger, like his instincts told him? In seconds, his mind was made up and he raced back to the pub.

oOo

Sam had been enjoying a pleasant buzz at the pub, but as soon as she had heard the news of Emma's disappearance, she had sobered up. Now, three hours after her evening at the pub had been so brutally interrupted, the happiness and celebration earlier on in the evening was forgotten. At first everyone had wanted to believe that Emma had simply headed home, leaving her car as she too had had something to drink, but when an hour after she had last been seen, she still hadn't arrived at her apartment and had remained unreachable on the phone, concern had began to mount among the officers at Sun Hill. With all the drink and celebration at the pub, many people found it difficult to recall who had been where, but it had been quickly established that Will was the last person to have seen Emma. There was no clear evidence, but everyone felt that Emma wouldn't have vanished voluntarily, despite the pressure she had been under the past few days. Everyone who was available and wasn't needed for other duties had been called in for a briefing, regardless of whether they were technically off-duty or not. Sam spotted many long faces as she scanned the group of detectives and officers assembled in the briefing room. Most looked tired as well, but the expression of worry was common to them all. Even Sally and Sergeant Stone had come in, despite orders to take a few days off from work to recover from their fortunately still minor injuries. It was Superintendent Heaton, even more grumpy than usual who opened the briefing.

"Thank you everyone for coming in at this hour and at such short notice. You wouldn't have been called away if we weren't dealing with an extremely urgent matter," he began. "It's been four hours since PC Keane was last seen and everything we know so far points to her being taken against her will. That is the assumption under which we are going to operate."

"A preliminary test has revealed that her drink was spiked with a novel designer drug called Mercury. All we know is that it isn't very easy to get a hold of this substance, but what little intelligence we have suggests a possible connection to the Rebecca Williams case and the as of yet unknown person or persons who also drugged PC Fletcher with the same substance. At this point we do not know how great the dose is that she received, tests to determine that are under way, but if we are dealing with an overdose, we are already running out of time. She would have rapidly lost consciousness, followed by the onset of organ failure and seizures. DC Perkins and DC Masters are interviewing the bar staff on duty now. Unfortunately CCTV outside the pub wasn't working at the time of her disappearance."

"Could that have been intentional?" Grace asked.

"We will get someone from tech support to look at it asap. But it is possible that one of the pub's staff was involved in some way. I know it was a busy night and everyone's mind was elsewhere, but if any of who do recall anyone who seemed out of place, please mention it directly to me or DCI Meadows."

"Does that mean we are discarding John Hooper's confession?" Max asked.

"No," Sam replied. "For the moment, we have to believe him. We have yet to find any link between him and the bombings and there is no indication that he had access to the necessary materials or had to skills to build an explosive device," Sam hesitated for a moment before she continued. So far everything she had said had been discussed with the DCI and the superintendent, but after their conversation another thought had occurred to her. Better to make a fool out of herself than overlook what might be a vital link, she told herself. "Some of you might have read the books. In that case you will be familiar with certain parallels between the series and our case. For that reason, I believe we need to re-interview Susan Carpenter and have a second go through her fan mail." A murmur of discontent went through the room. Sam could understand. Everyone was itching to be out on the streets looking for Emma and not sifting through a pile of letters. Sam waited for a moment, and then she continued, reading out the individual assignments. There was plenty to do for everyone.

oOo

Jo stifled a yawn. She and Terry had been tasked with interviewing the pub employees and some of the patrons who had been there around the time of Emma's disappearance. So far, nothing had turned up as they'd worked their way through the list of names, starting with the employees who'd been working the bar that night.

Terry was just bringing in another one of the waitresses. While most of the people they had interviewed so far had been rather unhappy and vocally so about being subjected to questioning and suspicion, the young woman with badly dyed red hair who was entering the interview room in front of Terry, looked close to tears.

"Please, sit down Ms Wilson."

The woman did as she was asked. Jo was about to ask her for her personal details, when she started to cry softly.

"Please," she began, between sobs. "I'm so sorry, but please don't tell my parents. Please, I'll do whatever I have to, but you can't tell them!"

Jo and Terry exchanged a look of confusion. What was she talking about? Terry nodded towards Jo, indicating that she should handle the situation. Jo sat down opposite the woman while Terry remained standing against one of the walls.

"Why don't you start at the beginning and we'll see what we can do?" Jo said gently and offered her a tissue.

"Thank you," she whispered and accepted the tissue, still crying softly.

"Is it all right if I call you Andrea?" Jo asked having obtained the name from the list the pub owner had given them.

Andrea nodded.

"All right, Andrea. Try and calm down. Do you want a glass of water?"

Andrea nodded again. As soon as Terry had left the room, she started to calm down a bit.

"That's better," Jo told her. "Can you tell what's wrong now?" She had never been very good at this kind of thing, but for the moment she seemed to be doing okay with the girl.

"I…I did it," Andrea finally said, her voice shaking. Jo was taken aback, but tried to hide her surprise.

"What did you do?"

"I spiked…I spiked that woman's drink." She started to cry again. "I never meant to hurt anyone," she explained in between sobs. Jo was tempted to believe her. There was bound to be more to the story and she was determined to find out what it was.

"I never thought anything like this would happen. It was supposed to be a joke. Just a joke." She started crying harder again, her shoulders shaking. Under other circumstances, Jo would have given the obviously distraught young woman some time to calm down, but right now time was of the essence.

"Did anyone tell you to spike her drink?" Jo asked.

"This man. He paid me to do it."

"And you didn't think that was the least bit odd?" Jo asked more sharply than she had intended to, but the girl's naïveté was testing her limits. What had she thought was going to happen, Jo wondered.

"Who was he?"

"Some older guy, I met him at a party a few weeks ago." She replied evasively Jo got the distinct impression that she was trying to hide something.

"What's his name?" Jo asked more directly this time.

"I don't know." Andrea didn't look at her.

"Andrea, has he threatened you? Is that why you won't tell us his name?"

Andrea nodded. "He said he'd tell my boss that I'm only seventeen. And I need the job, I really do," she added desperately.

"We can sort this out later, but now you need to tell me all you know about this man. We need to know who he is."

"I understand." Andrew swallowed hard. "I don't know his last name. His first name's Jason. He's pretty old, at least forty."

"What about his appearance? Can you describe him?"

"He's got pretty long hair for a guy. Dark brown, I think. He was wearing a ponytail at the party."

The description rang a bell in Jo's mind. It reminded her of a photograph she'd seen in the briefing room. What had been that name again? She'd read through Sam and Mickey's notes in a hurry when she and Terry had been assigned to aid them in their investigation, but there hadn't really been enough time for them to become familiar with all the details. Their focus had been on John Hooper, as everyone had believed him to be the sole man responsible.

"I'll be back in a moment." She told Andrea. The girl looked at her with a surprised expression, but said nothing. When Jo returned a few minutes later with a photograph of Jason Bowman, they had their answer. The journalist and would-be biographer of Moira Bliss had paid Andrea to spike Emma's drink. Why, they didn't know, but almost five hours after Emma's disappearance they had a lead.

oOo

After the DCI had given his reluctant agreement, Sam had made her way to the Metropole Hotel to speak to Susan Carpenter once again. Even if her colleagues thought differently, she was becoming more and more convinced that the author was the key to uncovering the motive and hence finding the killer. The receptionist wasn't very pleased at the prospect of the police disturbing one of their esteemed guests this early in the morning, but the sight of Sam's warrant card had eventually silenced the young woman manning the front desk.

Sam was certain that Susan Carpenter was going to be even less pleased to see her, but she couldn't have cared less. Armed with several letters from the fan mail collection, Sam knocked against the thick wooden door.

The answer was surprisingly swift. Within seconds, the door was opened. But it was clear from the expression on the woman's face that she had expected someone else.

"Ms Carpenter? I'm DI Nixon from Sun Hill. I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, but it is urgent I talk to you." Sam produced her warrant card once again, but the woman didn't even look at it. Reluctantly, she opened the door to allow Sam inside.

Sam instantly saw why Susan Carpenter had been up – an opened suitcase laid on the bed, half-packed. She thought it slightly suspicious that the woman was preparing to leave now of all time, but she didn't comment. She was here about something else.

"Please, take a seat." Susan's words were polite, but the tone wasn't.

"Ms Carpenter, I know some of my colleagues have spoken to you before and asked you the same questions, but I have to ask you again if you can think of anyone who would want to harm you? Perhaps someone who is jealous of your success?" Sam began the conversation as openly as possible. She wanted to get the author talking if possible without volunteering too much information about the reason for her visit.

"I cannot think of anyone. Aside from Rebecca nobody knew that I was Moira Bliss and she was the one handling all the details. All I do is write. I told her that I wanted nothing to do with the rest."

"You used to work as an editor for a publishing house, the same publishing house that now published your books – Orgon publishing. You can't only have made friends in that business," Sam said and regarded her pointedly.

"I'm sure I didn't, but it was a long time ago." Susan's reply was curt.

"One of our officers is missing. The same officer who took your place at the press conference. We believe that her disappearance is connected to that case." Sam watched Susan's face carefully, but all she could see was genuine surprise.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that." She sighed. "There is in fact something I didn't tell your other colleagues. When I was working for the publishing house, many years ago, I came across a manuscript, terribly written, full of mistakes and contradictions, but the idea, the idea was brilliant. But still, I had to reject the manuscript. I forgot about it soon afterwards. Met the love of my life, quit the publishing business and went to Australia. But I guess, it's always been in the back of my mind and a few years ago, I wrote the first book. I changed a lot of things and after all this time, I never thought anyone would recognize it." She shook her head.

"Someone did." Sam pulled out copies of several letters that had been among Moira's fan mail. She and Mickey had spotted them during their first search, but they hadn't paid a lot of attention. They had appeared to be the work of just another nutter trying to get attention. She slid them across the table to Susan. She quickly glanced at them, nodding as she did so.

"Bowman, Jason Bowman. That was his name," she recalled in a shaking voice.

So he must have known that Emma couldn't be the real Moira Bliss all along. She simply wasn't old enough to have rejected his manuscript almost twenty years ago. He couldn't have been much older than twenty at the time and some where along the way he'd probably figured out who Emma really was.

"Excuse me for a moment." Sam reached for her mobile phone and dialled Jack's number.

oOo

Not that they needed to wait for a search authorization under the circumstances, with two separate lines of investigation clearly pointing to their suspect, but it still took far too long for Jack's taste until they were finally able to search Jason Bowman's apartment. Due to the possibility of the apartment being booby-trapped, Heaton had insisted that the entire building be evacuated and searched by the bomb squad before anyone else entered. Two hours and lots of complaints from the residents later, a new day was dawning over the city.

"DCI Meadows?" Jack had forgotten the man's name, but he recognised him as one of the sergeants with the bomb squad as he came walking towards him. "We've searched the building and its all clear. There is no sign of an explosive device on the premises."

Jack nodded grimly. If Emma was in there, they would have found her by now. Still, they had to go ahead with the search as it was all they had to go on for the moment.

"I would like to accompany your team on the search, if you don't mind, sir? If he's got the ingredients to make a bomb, I know how to spot them."

"That's probably a good idea," Jack replied, only half his mind on the conversation. He knew it was pointless now but he kept wondering if they couldn't have made the connection earlier. Jason Bowman had been right under their noses from the start. But no one had ever said that hindsight wasn't twenty-twenty.

"All right, let's go," he said with a sigh, feeling little confidence that their search would give them any fresh leads.

oOo

"That's it!"

"Huh?" Will hadn't listened to what Sergeant Stone had been saying. His mind kept drifting to Emma, wondering where she could possibly be, and wondering if she was even still alive.

"I was saying that as soon as I finished this coffee, I'm driving you home," Stone repeated and took another sip from his coffee. Will was about to protest that they had only just gone on duty and that the local business association had explicitly demanded a visible police presence at the mall after the bomb-scare the previous day, but his heart wasn't in it. Even if it had been, his body wasn't co-operating. No matter what he was telling himself, he was still decidedly weakened from the overdose. He hadn't really planned to go back to work already, but Emma's disappearance had spurred his actions. Not being involved with the search for her was a bit of a disappointment, but he would probably just go crazy sitting around at home alone.

Will watched as Stone paid for his coffee and came back walking over to him.

"Come on, let's go before you keel over," Stone said to him. Will only nodded. He was feeling worse by the minute and it wasn't just worry for his friend. The anti-seizure medication was making him nauseous and technically he wasn't even allowed back on the job yet while he was on the treatment.

Stone started heading towards the exit. Will followed him, but as he passed a bookshop, the store window caught his eye. The latest volume of the Zariel series was prominently on display. DI Nixon's words during the briefing rang in his mind again. She had mentioned parallels between their case and the books. Will had read the first two volumes while laid up in hospital and he could only agree. As crazy as it sounded, she was right. Perhaps, Will was starting to wonder, was it possible that this third book could give them some sort of clue. It seemed far out even to him, but now that he thought about it, it was starting to make more and more sense.The end of the first book had involved Zariel poisoning a couple guilty of murder who'd have otherwise escaped punishment. It didn't exactly fit him and Rebecca, especially not the 'guilty of murder' part, but maybe the plan had been really for both of them to die of the overdose. Then there had been the bomb left in the CID car after the press conference – another element taken from the ending of the second book where Zariel narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.

"What are you waiting for?" Stone had noticed that Will wasn't following him anymore and came jogging back towards him. Will looked up, abruptly pulled back to reality.

"I'll just be a moment," he told Stone, unable to explain his hunch. Will slipped inside the book store.

oOo

Stone was outside when he came back out, a copy of the book in hand. The sergeant looked highly annoyed and seemed close to tapping his foot on the floor in impatience.

"Sorry, sarge. But I think this could be important," Will said in response to a look that was clearly questioning his sanity. Will wasn't so sure about that himself, but they weren't exactly swamped with options right now. Trying to hide his fatigue, Will leaned against a wall and started flipping through the thick volume.

"Always reading the ending first? Yeah, me too," Stone commented sarcastically as he watched Will's efforts. Will ignored him, quickly moving his eyes up and down the pages.

"I think I have something," he declared a few minutes later.

"This better be good," Stone grumbled, arms still crossed in front of his chest.

"Something DI Nixon said at the briefing got me thinking…" Will was about to try and explain his hunch, but Stone didn't let him finish.

"I have been thinking, too. And since you are clearly feeling better, I think you're up for a little detour on the way before I drop you off," Stone declared cryptically and began heading towards the exit again. Will followed him, wondering how he could convince the other man of his theory. Stone would probably think he was still delirious.

They got back into the car in silence and Stone started driving, however they seemed to be heading for the centre of Canley instead of the in the direction of Will's apartment. Will decided to make use of the time, trying to glean more details from the book. Flipping through didn't seem to have helped much, so he decided to actually read the last few pages, as with the amount of traffic in the city, they wouldn't be going anywhere fast at this hour.

oOo

Stone drummed his fingers on the dashboard as they were waiting in a long line at a traffic light. Traffic was a nightmare at this hour. Will would probably pass out before they ever got to the Blue Parrot. Not that he expected anyone to be there this early, but he still wanted to check it out. Will probably wouldn't be pleased, given his previous experience there, but Stone didn't care. Will should have stayed at home, he thought. He was probably frightening the public by looking like he was going to keel over any second. The light up ahead changed to green. They advanced a few meters, until the light turned red once again. Stone looked over to Will who seemed to have gotten even paler since they'd left the mall. He looked up from the book, looking him straight in the eye.

"I know it's crazy, sarge. But I know what is going to happen to Emma." His voice was toneless. "It's all in there." He indicated the book on his lap. Stone raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

"If I'm right and I really hope that I'm making an idiot out of myself, she's tied to a bomb right now. And it's going to go off in sixteen minutes." Will's voice was shaking.

"Where?" Stone simply asked. Someone was angrily honking their horn behind them. Stone returned his attention to the street to see that the light had changed to green again.

"I don't know," Will confessed dejectedly

"But I do," he said. "At least I have a pretty good idea."

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

oOo

Will could only hear one side of the conversation, but even then he could tell that the DCI was livid when Stone informed him of their theory.

"No, we have nothing to back this up," Stone was just saying. He listened for a moment, then went on, "Yes, it's a hunch, but..," he trailed off, presumably interrupted by his superior. The DCI was shouting now. Will could hear the muffled words from where he sat. Something about them going back to their jobs unless they wanted to look for new ones.

"PC Fletcher and I are on our way now. We should make it just in time," Stone said into the phone, while driving the car at the same time.

"If we're right, sir, there is no time to wait for SO19 and the bomb squad to get there. It will be too late by then," Stone explained impatiently. He was going far too fast, but this was the only way they could possibly make it to the Blue Parrot in time. If they didn't end up wrapped around a lamp post first, Will thought darkly as they sped through the city. But they safely came to a stop a few moments later, right in the middle of a no-parking zone.

"Sorry, I've got to go," Stone told the DCI over the phone, already leaping out of the car, followed closely by Will. They ran past the wooden gate and down the alley way into the small courtyard where the entrance to the bar was well hidden from view. Stone got there first with Will still suffering the after-effects of the overdose and tried the door. To their surprise it was unlocked. The two officers stepped into the dark room. It took a short while for their eyes to adjust, but the main room was deserted.

"Basement," Will simply said. Although he'd been there before, it still took him precious time to find the stairs leading down from one of the rooms behind the bar. They raced down the stairs, soon finding themselves in a dimly lit hallway running underneath a low ceiling.

Stone silently pointed to the ceiling. It took a second for Will to understand. There were gas pipes running along the ceiling. If a bomb blew up anywhere near them, the whole building could go up.

"I'll handle it down here," Will said. "Just go and get as many people out of this building as possible." He didn't feel at all confident as he spoke the words, but his determination more than made up for that.

Stone nodded, not even hesitating. "Good luck!" It was all he said before disappearing back up the stairs. Will didn't wait either.

Calling Emma's name in the hope that she could hear him, he moved down the corridor, following instinct and the gas pipes over his head. His calls weren't answered, but he pressed on undeterred. It was two minutes to nine according to his watch, when he reached a thick metal door at the end of the corridor. His heart sank before he'd even tried the handle. He'd never be able to break down this door, he thought. But the handle gave easily under his hand. Will pushed the door open, his heart pounding heavily as he thought of what he might find.

He saw the glowing red numbers on the digital clock first. It wasn't a countdown like in the movies. It was an ordinary alarm clock sitting atop what looked like two metal cans and a jumble of white wires.

The time displayed was 8.58 a.m. Will didn't know the first thing about bombs, but it seemed like a bad idea to try and move the contraption.

It was only then that he spotted Emma. She was slumped against the bottom of the metal shelf on which the bomb sat. Will rushed over to her, momentarily forgetting all about the bomb as he checked for a pulse. It took him three tries to finally find it as his own motions were jittery from anxiety and exertion.

"Emma, Emma! Wake up!" He shook her gently by the shoulder. She only groaned weakly in response but didn't move. Will was just about to try carrying her out, even though he knew very well that in his present condition, it would be near impossible, when he saw the plastic ties that were looped tightly around Emma's wrists and secured to the shelf behind her. Two options down, what was left? Will got to his feet again. He ignored the whirl of dizziness and nausea and focused on the bomb. There were two wires leading to the alarm clock and both of them were white – just like in the book. Nothing to go on here and their time was going to be up in a minute. Will took a deep breath, took hold of the nearest wire and yanked on it with all his strength.

oOo

Stone was running down the last flight of stairs, confident that he'd checked the entire building. The two floors above the bar were virtually derelict, the flats there clearly deserted for what had to be years. Stone knew he was cutting it close, but he had wanted to make sure that the building was definitely empty, so he'd checked every flat, including the attic.

He didn't so much care about himself. There was no one at home waiting for him and he doubted his colleagues would miss him very much either, in fact there were probably a couple who would secretly be glad to see the back of him. His parents might shed a tear or two, but given that they hadn't spoken in years, he had his doubts. But he wouldn't have anyone else hurt by this maniac, and certainly not a civilian. Will had his own choice to make, but Stone sincerely hoped that the younger man would manage to get himself and Emma to safety.

He reached the bar occupying the ground floor and quickly crossed the room. Outside, he could already hear sirens approaching. He pushed the door open to run outside, but came to a grinding halt when he found himself staring into the barrel of a gun. Jason Bowman stood in the doorway, gun trained on the sergeant. Beyond the courtyard, Stone could hear the sirens now up close. It would be only a matter of seconds until back-up reached them, but in the enclosed space, that could turn ugly very quickly. Stone stood as still as he could, rapidly trying to evaluate his options. He doubted he could jump Bowman. He was simply too far away. He could pull the trigger before Stone had a chance to wrestle the gun away from him. It was too risky. He was about to try and reason with the man, prepared the launch into the whole spiel of not making things worse than they already were, but before he got the chance Bowman pulled the trigger.

oOo

Nothing happened. The wire simply gave, but that was it. Will stared at the red digits of the clock, still glowing brightly in the near darkness. A moment or an eternity later, he couldn't say, they switched and the time was 9:00. Will's body tensed. Like in trance, he stood and watched. 9:01, 9:02.

"Will, is that you?" It was just a whisper, but it was enough to pull him back into reality.

"Emma?" Will exclaimed, kneeling down next to her again. Emma blinked tiredly at him in the dim light. Her eyes were glassy, pupils blown wide, but there seemed to be at least some degree of recognition in them.

"Emma, it's me. Everything is going to be all right." he said, squeezing her shoulder softly, but her eyes had already drifted shut again. Fear shot through Will and he checked her pulse again with trembling fingers. Maybe it was his imagination, but the beat appeared to have grown fainter. He needed to find her help. Where was Stone, Will wondered, having forgotten all about the other man for a while. He should be back by now. The sergeant not having returned could only mean that he was in trouble. And wasn't the DCI going to send for SO19? Why weren't they here yet?

Questions over questions were swirling through Will's mind, when suddenly, the sound of two gunshots in rapid succession, albeit faint and distant, rang out. Will surged to his feet, but no matter how much he wanted to, he simply couldn't remain standing, much less make his way back up the stairs. He didn't have the strength anymore. All he could do was sink down next to Emma, back against the shelf and watch the faint rise and fall of her chest even as his vision began to grow dim.

oOo

Getting shot was not at all like he had expected it to be. It didn't so much hurt, at least not immediately. It was like someone had simply hit him with great force. He was thrown backwards and crashed back on the ground hard. But he was too numb to feel any pain. He couldn't even tell exactly where the bullet had hit him, right now, that somehow didn't seem important, even though, a small part of his mind realized that he could be bleeding to death this very moment.

Dazed, he watched as Bowman lifted the gun as if in slow motion. He first thought Bowman was going to shoot him again, but much to his surprise, the killer turned the gun on himself.

Unable to turn away, Stone watched as Bowman pulled the trigger and the side of his head exploded in a gory mess of blood and bone just before he crumpled to the ground, gun still clutched in his right hand.

Even if he had been able to, Stone wouldn't have stopped him. In his mind, Bowman didn't deserve anything less. Although he was almost certain, Stone considered getting up and making sure that Bowman really was dead, but at that instant SO19 stormed the courtyard and he decided that it was probably best to stay where he was for now, not least because his right arm was suddenly starting to feel like it was on fire. Craning his neck slightly, he managed to get a look at the injury and was surprised at the amount of blood that was already staining the entire right sleeve of his white shirt. He probably should be worried, he realized, but it was almost as if it was all happening to someone else.

However, reality sunk in a second later, when unseen hands pulled him to his feet and started dragging him away towards the alleyway, jarring his injured arm in the process.

"My colleague…" he gasped, trying to breathe through the white hot pain, "He's still in there."

"No worries, sergeant. Our men are already taking care of the situation," one of the SO19 officers reassured him.

oOo

Will woke up to someone shining a light in his eyes. He instinctively squeezed his eyes shut and tried to turn his head away from the source, but someone was holding him in place. The light vanished a moment later. Will opened his eyes once again. Two people were standing over him, Sergeant Stone and another, unfamiliar young man holding a pen light. At the sight of the paramedic, it all came back to Will. He sat up, or at least tried to only to be stopped by Sergeant Stone.

"Just stay still," he told him. It was only then that he noticed that Stone's right sleeve was stained with blood. Through the torn fabric, he could spot a white bandage. Just what had happened while he was out? And where was Emma?

"Emma?" Will asked, deciding to go for first things first.

"She's en route to hospital now," Stone told him, not able to hide the worry from his pale face.

"That's where you should be going as well," the paramedic commented.

"No, no. I'm fine," Will protested and made another attempt at sitting up. This time, no one stopped him. His head was swimming for a moment, but his sense of balance quickly returned. He was still in the basement. DCI Meadows and DI Nixon were standing near the door, talking quietly. He turned his attention to the shelf, but the bomb was gone, presumably already being examined by the experts.

"I was talking to your sergeant," the paramedic pointed out and shot Stone a severe look. "But he insisted I make sure that you're okay first."

Will looked at Stone, surprised at the gesture. He really hadn't expected that from the other man. Stone merely shrugged, wincing slightly as he did so.

"So, how is he?" he asked the paramedic instead, talking about Will as if he wasn't in the room.

"I'll need to check his blood pressure and he should probably come to the hospital for some tests, but I don't see any immediate danger. Now, you on the other hand need to have that wound cleaned before it has a chance to become infected." The paramedic indicated the injury on Stone's upper arm. Stone nodded in ascent. "I'll just let the detectives know." He turned away. The paramedic started to rummage in his bag, getting out a blood pressure cuff. He proceeded to take Will's blood pressure.

A thought occurred to Will. He didn't really want to ask, not when his colleagues were around, but he needed to know.

"Did I…did I have another seizure?"

The paramedic looked at him blankly. "Are you epileptic? Are you on any sort of medication?"

"Sort of," Will replied evasively, uncertain how to put it.

The paramedic seemed to take his silence for confirmation. "Then you'll definitely have to come to the hospital for an EEG. Your medication might need adjusting."

Will nodded. As much as he would like to ignore this, he couldn't. Not if he wanted to hold on to his career. He also knew that he needed to come clean to his superiors about his condition. It might not just create a problem for him, he realized, but also for others. Stone might have needed his help.

"All right." The paramedic steadied him as he got to his feet. "Your blood pressure is a bit low, but that isn't too surprising," he told him and steered Will towards the door.

"Is he all right?" DI Nixon asked with concern in her voice when they passed her and the DCI.

"He needs to go for some tests. He really shouldn't have been on active duty in his condition," the paramedic admonished the two detectives. Sam and Jack looked at him in surprise. Will winced internally. This was going to get nasty in a moment.

"All right," the DCI said, and turning to Will, he added, "let as know if you have to stay longer. We need to take your statement as soon as possible." Will wasn't sure, but he got the distinct impression that there was something in the DCI's tone that said 'we'll talk about this later'. That was just as well with him. He felt exhausted and wasn't sure if he could have remained on his feet were it not for the steadying grip of the paramedic.

oOo

Will held his breath when he saw the neurologist making his way towards him, clip board in hand. It had only been four hours since his arrival at hospital, but the events in the basement already seemed like a life time ago. It all seemed a little unreal in retrospect. It had all made sense at the time, but looking back, Will couldn't help but wonder what he had been thinking when he'd ripped out that wire. He didn't regret doing it, but he honestly wasn't sure if he could make the same choice again, with a clear head.

"Mr Fletcher?" the neurologist who had examined him earlier asked, bringing Will's attention back to the present.

Will nodded. He was dead tired, but the worry, mostly for Emma though and not for himself, had kept him awake.

"Well, one thing is for certain, you didn't suffer another seizure. It's too early to say that it won't happen at all, but it's a good sign. You're moving in the right direction, so to speak."

Will breathed a sigh of relief. Only now it was starting to sink in how much trouble he could be in if he indeed did have a seizure back in the basement.

"You'll still need to continue with the treatment for a few weeks longer."

Will nodded again. He didn't like taking the medication, but he certainly didn't want to have another seizure.

"You can go home now, Mr Fletcher." The neurologist turned away, but stopped a second later.

"Oh, I nearly forgot. You really must inform your superiors of your condition. It's up to them and the FME at your station, but I'd strongly recommend you being assigned to office duties for the time being."

Great, Will thought. Not only would he earn himself a stern talking to at the least, but he'd also be manning the front desk for several weeks.

"And no driving, of course. But I believe that has already been explained to you."

Will nodded guiltily, but his mind was already elsewhere. He needed to find out how Emma was doing. Once he was sure that she was all right, he would face up to whatever the DCI had in store for him.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

oOo

Three weeks after Will had finally told Sam and Jack the whole story, his life had settled once again into a fairly predictable routine. He'd escaped suspension, mostly because, much to his surprise, Sergeant Stone had put in a good word for him with the inspector. Working the front desk was pretty boring, but at least it allowed him a fair amount of free time, most of which he'd spent visiting Emma at the hospital. Although he wouldn't consider himself fortunate where his encounter with Mercury was concerned, but he'd still fared considerably better than Emma, who had lapsed into a coma shortly after being admitted to the hospital. The prognosis was uncertain, too little was known about the drug for the doctors to be able to tell him more than that they'd have to wait and see.

For three weeks, Will had spent every late afternoon at the hospital, telling her about his day at the station or about the latest gossip. Other times he'd read to her, or simply sit in silence at her bedside. In the first week or two most of the officers of Sun Hill had come by at one point or another, but by now, the visitor list had dwindled to a steady few, including Mickey and Sergeant Stone. Emma's father dropped by most days as well, but since Will had gotten the impression that the CPS detective didn't particularly like seeing him at his daughter's bedside, he usually made sure that they didn't meet.

Normally, Will stayed until the end of visiting hours, or even longer, depending on how sympathetic the nurse on duty was, but today he had to cut his visit short as he had another appointment with the neurologist. He had another EEG scheduled and if that came back clear he'd be able to return to his previous duties. It wasn't that he wasn't looking forward to go back to doing what he loved, but somehow it didn't seem fair that he should escape unscathed when Emma was still lying unconscious in a hospital bed, possibly never to wake up again.

Will sighed and closed the book from which he'd been reading. Elbows on his knees, he leaned forward, watching Emma's still face looking out for any sign of change, no matter how minute.

"I'm sorry Emma, but I have to leave early today. I'll be back tomorrow. Don't go anywhere, right?" He reached out and squeezed her limp hand firmly, like he did every day before he left for the night. No matter how often he'd told himself to stop expecting a reaction, he kept hoping that this time, she'd squeeze his hand back.

Still, when her fingers suddenly clenched around his, he was almost convinced he'd imagined it. Not letting go of her hand for a second, Will leaned in close.

"Emma?! Emma? Can you hear me?" Will's heart was pounding hard against his chest. He watched Emma closely, but there was no sign of her having heard him.

"Emma, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand," he tried again, hardly daring to hope for a reaction.

The miracle happened, and he could feel her fingers tighten around his once more. This time, he was sure he hadn't imagined it. Still not letting go of her hand, Will pressed the call button, his appointment with the neurologist completely forgotten.

oOo

After calling for the nurse Will had stayed with Emma, keeping a hold of her hand and talking softly to her until Emma's doctor had arrived and he'd been told to wait outside. The first thing he'd done was call the station to ask them to pass the news on to Emma's father. As much as he disliked the man, Will couldn't imagine what he had to be going through. Nikki Wright had promised to pass on the message, but almost two hours later, Will was still waiting for news on his own. The hands of the clock on the opposite wall seemed to have reached a stand-still, but somehow, another hour passed agonizingly slow. What could possibly be taking so long, Will wondered. The more time passed, the more worried he grew. They couldn't be taking this long if nothing was wrong, could they?

"Mr Fletcher?" Dr. Pearson, who'd also been the physician treating Will after his overdose, came walking up to where Will was sitting. Will immediately got to his feet. "How is she?" he asked.

"As well as could be expected, really." Dr. Pearson replied.

"Can I see her?"

"Not so fast," Dr. Pearson raised a hand. "What Emma needs most at the moment is rest. She appears to be suffering some minor memory loss, but given the traumatic experience she's been through..."

Will nodded. He would never forgive himself if Emma wasn't going to be all right. It was because of him that she had gotten involved in the case in the first place.

"You can go and see her now, but don't expect too much. It will most likely be a few days until she's fully cognizant of her surroundings. In the meantime, you should try not to upset her. If she has any questions about what happened, feel free to answer them, but keep down the level of detail until she is better. For the same reason, I won't have your detectives question her just now. From what I understand, that can wait."

"Thank you, Dr. Pearson, thank you very much," Will stammered, overwhelmed by the news.

oOo

"There you go," Alyana declared with a kind smile. Emma gratefully sank back against the stack of pillows.

"Do you need anything else?" the nurse asked.

Emma shook her head. "No, I'm fine." She still hadn't gotten used to the way her voice sounded - weak and rough - but she had been assured that it would be back to normal in no time. It would take a little longer until she got her strength back, but Dr. Pearson was confident that with intense physical therapy she should be able to return home fairly soon.

"Do you feel up for visitors?" Alyana asked, interrupting her thoughts. Emma hesitated. Almost every time she'd been awake during the past three days, someone had been there. Often it was her father, who'd taken some time off work, until she was better, or friends and colleagues from the station came to visit. She really hadn't had much time to think.

"Well, if you need some time alone. I'll just tell him to come back another time." Alyana regarded her with sympathy. "He's been here every day and I think he can do one day without you," Alyana laughed.

Emma looked at her in surprise, trying to figure out who she was talking about. So many people had been there to see her, almost everyone from uniform and most of CID. There were well-wishing cards on her bedside table signed by everyone at Sun Hill, even people she hardly knew. She didn't want to seem ungrateful for all the support she was getting.

"No, no, it's fine. I could do with some distraction," Emma lied.

She was just going to close her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them again, Will was sitting in a chair next to her bed, reading a newspaper. She'd probably fallen asleep, Emma thought guiltily.

"Emma!" Will had obviously noticed that she was awake and put away his newspaper. "How are you today?"

"Okay," Emma replied curtly. It wasn't that she didn't like Will visiting, she just felt generally uncomfortable speaking around her colleagues with the way her voice still sounded.

"Is everything all right? Do you need the nurse?" There was instant worry on Will's face

Emma shook her head, not meeting his eyes.

"Emma, what's wrong?" Will asked, the concern in his voice genuine. "If you need some time alone, just tell me and I'll leave you be."

"No, it's not...that." Emma struggled to articulate the words. It was always more difficult when she was tired, but she didn't want Will to leave. For some reason, she felt safe when he was there. Still, like everyone he was walking on egg-shells around her, treating her like she was going to break any moment. Emma couldn't stand it. She knew it was well meant, but the more people tiptoed around her, the more worried she had grown about the wholes in her memory. Dozens of possibilities, one worse than the next had tumbled through her mind.

"There is something," she began, for once not caring how her voice sounded. She needed to know and she trusted Will to give her an honest answer. "I need to know what really happened to me." Emma looked Will in the eyes. He held her gaze. "Emma, I'm not sure this is such a good idea. At least for the moment, I think you should just try and get as much rest as you can. I promise I'll tell you everything I know. Just give it some time," he said gently.

Emma shook her head. That was what everyone had been telling her.

"I need to know now, Will. It's driving me crazy that there are these holes in my memory. What is so bad that no one can tell me?!" her voice broke down to a hoarse whisper as she was pleaded with Will, but she didn't care.

Will put his hand over hers.

"All right. I'll tell you everything I know," he promised and started talking. Will spoke for almost an hour and Emma listened in silence, drinking in every word. It was like a weight was being slowly lifted. By the time he finished, Emma was laughing with relief.

"What's wrong? Are you all right?" Will asked concernedly, clearly not understanding.

"It's just...," Emma struggled to speak, "I've imagined so many terrible things that could have happened," she giggled, pulling Will into a hug. "Thank you, Will. Thank you so much! You saved my life!"

"I was only returning a favour." Will held her tightly.

The End

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and/or review this story. I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you've enjoyed it as well! And, in case anyone was wondering why I chose _Racheengel_ as the title for one of the fictional novels, it is the title of the _Tatort _episode that inspired this story and its English translation, _Avenging Angel_, became the title of this story.


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